The chimes: a goblin story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new year in

CV6/42

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

5--^

a.\lA'

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL,

IN PROSE.
BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS

WITH FOUR COLOURED ETCHINGS^ AND WOODCUTS, BY LEECH.

Tenth Edition. In small 8vo, bound in cloth, ^ilt edges, price 5s.

THE CHIMES.

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THE CHIMES:

SOME BELLS THAT RANG AN OLD YEAR OUT
AND A NEW YEAR IN.

BY CHAELES DICKENS.

FOURTH EDITION.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.

MDCCCXLV.

LONDON
BRADBURY AND EVANS PRINTERS WHITKFRIARS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Tower of the Chimes
The Spirit of the Chimes .
The Dinner on the Steps

Trotty Veck

Alderman Cute and his Friends .
Trotty at Home . . . .
Sir Joseph Bowley's ....

The Old Church

Trotty Veck among the Bells
Will Fern's Cottage . .
Richard and Margaret
Margaret and her Child .
The New Year's Dance .

Engraver.

Artist.

Becker.

D. Maclise, R.A.

Becker.

D. Maclise, R.A.

Groves.

R. Doyle.

Linton.

J. Leech.

Linton.

J. Leech.

Linton,

R. Doyle.

Linton.

J. Leech.

Gray.

C. Stanfield, R.A.

Linton.

R. Doyle.

Gray.

C. Stanfield, R.A.

Linton.

J. Leech.

Balziel.

R. Doyle.

Linton.

J. Leech.

K^

FfRSi ftUftKTER.

HERE are not many peo-
ple— and as it is desira-
ble that a story-teller and
a story-reader should esta-
bhsh a mutual understand-
ing as soon as possible, I
beg it to be noticed that I
confine this observation nei-
ther to young people nor to
little people, but extend it
to all conditions of people :

little and big, young and old : yet growing up.

2 THE CHIMES.

or already growing down again — there are not,
I say, many people who would care to sleep in
a church. I don't mean at sermon-time in warm
weather (when the thing has actually heen done,
once or twice), hut in the night, and alone. A great
multitude of persons will he violently astonished, I
know, hy this position, in the hroad hold Day. But
it applies to Night. It must he argued hy night.
And I will undertake to maintain it successfully on
any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose,
with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will
meet me singly in an old churchyard, before an old
church door ; and will previously empower me to lock
him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.

For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering
round and round a building of that sort, and moaning
as it goes ; and of trying, with its unseen hand, the
windows and the doors ; and seeking out some cre-
vices by which to enter. And when it has got in ; as
one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be ;
it wails and howls to issue forth again : and not con-
tent with stalking through the aisles, and gliding

THE FIRST QUARTER. 3

round and round the pillars, and tempting the deep
organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the
rafters : then flings itself despairingly upon the stones
below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it
comes up stealthily, and creeps along the walls :
seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred
to the Dead. At some of these, it breaks out shrilly,
as with laughter ; and at others, moans and cries as
if it were lamenting. It has a ghostly sound too,
lingering within the altar ; where it seems to chaunt,
in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done, and false
Gods worshipped ; in defiance of the Tables of the Law,
which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and
broken. Ugh ! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly
round the fire ! It has an awful voice, that wind at
Midnight, singing in a church !

But high up in the steeple ! There the foul blast
roars and whistles ! High up in the steeple, where
it is free to come and go through many an airy arch
and loophole, and to twist and twine itself about the
giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and
make the very tower shake and shiver ! High up in

B 2

4 THE CHIMES.

the steeple, where the belfry is ; and iron rails are
ragged with rust ; and sheets of lead and copper,
shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and
heave beneath the unaccustomed tread ; and birds
stuff shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists
and beams ; and dust grows old and grey ; and
speckled spiders, indolent and fat with long security,
swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells,
and never loose their hold upon their thread-spun
castles in the air, or climb up sailor-like in quick
alarm, or drop upon the ground and ply a score of
nimble legs to save a life ! High up in the steeple of
an old church, far above the hght and murmur of the
town and far below the flying clouds that shadow
it, is the wild and dreary place at night : and high
up in the steeple of an old church, dwelt the Chimes
I tell of.

They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago,
these Bells had been baptized by bishops : so many
centuries ago, that the register of their baptism was
lost long, long before the memory of man : and no
one knew their names. They had had their God-

THE FIRST QUARTER. 6

fathers and Godmothers, these Bells (for my own part,
by the way, I would rather incur the responsibility of
being Godfather to a Bell than a Boy) : and had had
their silver mugs no doubt, besides. But Time had
mowed down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth
had melted down their mugs : and they now hung,
nameless and mugless, in the church tower.

Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had
clear, loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these BeUs ;
and far and wide they might be heard upon the wind.
Much too sturdy Chimes were they, to be dependent on
the pleasure of the wind, moreover ; for, fighting gal-
lantly against it when it took an adverse whim, they
would pour their cheerful notes into a listening ear right
royally ; and bent on being heard, on stormy nights, by
some poor mother watching a sick child, or some lone
wife whose husband was at sea, they had been sometimes
known to beat a blustering Nor '-Wester — aye, "all to
fits," as Toby Veck said ; for though they chose to call
him Trotty Veck, his name was Toby, and nobody
could make it anything else either (except Tobias)
without a special act of parliament ; he having been

THE CHIMES.

as lawfully christened in his day as the Bells had been
in theirs, though with not quite so much of solemnity
or public rejoicing.

For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck's belief,
for I am sure he had opportunities enough of forming
a correct one. And whatever Toby Veck said, I say.
And I take my stand by Toby Veck, although he did
stand all day long (and weary work it was) just outside
the church-door. In fact he was a ticket-porter, Toby
Veck, and waited there for jobs.

And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed,
stony-toed, tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in, in
the winter-time, as Toby Veck well knew. The wind
came tearing round the corner — especially the east
wind — as if it had sallied forth, express, from the con-
fines of the earth, to have a blow at Toby. And often-
times it seemed to come upon him sooner than it had
expected, for bouncing round the corner, and passing
Toby, it would suddenly wheel round again, as if it cried
<« Why, here he is !" Incontinently his little white
apron would be caught up over his head like a naughty
boy's garments, and his feeble little cane would be seen

THE FIRST QUARTER. 7

to wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand, and his
legs would undergo tremendous agitation, and Toby
himself all aslant, and facing now in this direction,
now in that, would be so banged and buffeted, and
touzled, and worried, and hustled, and lifted off his feet,
as to render it a state of things but one degree removed
from a positive miracle, that he wasn't carried up
bodily into the air as a colony of frogs or snails or
other portable creatures sometimes are, and rained
down again, to the great astonishment of the natives,
on some strange corner of the world where ticket-
porters are unknown.

But windy weather, in spite of its using him so
roughly, was, after all, a sort of holiday for Toby.
That's the fact. He didn't seem to wait so long for
a sixpence in the wind, as at other times ; for the
having to fight with that boisterous element took oft
his attention, and quite freshened him up, when he
was getting hungry and low-spirited. A hard frost
too, or a fall of snow, was an Event ; and it seemed to
do him good, somehow or other—- it would have been
hard to say in what respect though, Toby ! So wind

S THE CHIMES.

and frost and snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of
hail, were Tohy Veck's red-letter days.

Wet weather was the worst : the cold, danfp,
clammy wet, that wrapped him up like a moist great-
coat : the only kind of great-coat Toby owned, or could
have added to his comfort by dispensing with. Wet
days, when the rain came slowly, thickly, obstinately
down ; when the street's throat, like his own, was
choked with mist ; when smoking umbrellas passed
and repassed, spinning round and round Hke so many
teetotums, as they knocked against each other on the
crowded footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of
uncomfortable sprinklings ; when gutters brawled and
water-spouts were full and noisy ; when the wet from
the projecting stones and ledges of the church fell
drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw
on which he stood mere mud in no time ; those were
the days that tried him. Then indeed, you might see
Toby looking anxiously out from his shelter in an
angle of the church wall — such a meagre shelter that
in summer time it never cast a shadow thicker than
a good-sized walking stick upon the sunny pavement

THE FIRST QUARTER. 9

-with a disconsolate and lengthened face.. But

coming out, a minute afterwards, to warm himself by

10 THE CHIMES.

exercise : and trotting up and down some dozen times :
he would brighten even then, and go back more
brightly to his niche.

They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant
speed if it did n't make it. He could have Walked
faster perhaps ; most likely ; but rob him of his trot,
and Toby would have taken to his bed and died. It
bespattered him with mud in dirty weather ; it cost
him a world of trouble ; he could have walked with
infinitely greater ease ; but that was one reason for
his clinging to it so tenaciously. A weak, small, spare
old man, he was a very Hercules, this Toby, in his
good intentions. He loved to earn his money. He
delighted to believe — Toby was very poor, and couldn't
well afford to part with a delight — that he was worth
his salt. With a shilling or an eighteenpenny mes-
sage or small parcel in hand, his courage, always
' high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he would call
out to fast Postmen ahead of him, to get out of the
way ; devoutly believing that in the natural course
of things he must inevitably overtake and run them
down ; and he had perfect faith — not often tested —

THE FIRST QUARTER. 11

in his being able to carry anything that man could
lift.

Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm
himself on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with
his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in
the mire ; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing
them against each other, poorly defended from the
searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted,
with a private apartment only for the thumb and a
common room or tap for the rest of the fingers ; Toby,
with his knees bent and his cane beneath his arm, still
trotted. Falling out into the road to look up at the
belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby trotted still.

He made this last excursion several times a day, for
they were company to him ; and when he heard their
voices, he had an interest in glancing at their lodging-
place, and thinking how they were moved, and what
hammers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the more
curious about these Bells, because there were points of
resemblance between themselves and him. They
hung there, in all weathers : with the wind and rain
driving in upon them : facing only the outsides of all
those houses ; never getting any nearer to the blazing

12 THE CHIMES.

fires that gleamed and slione upon the windows, or
came puffing out of the chimney tops ; and incapable
of participation in any of the good things that were
constantly being handed, through the street doors and
the area railings, to prodigious cooks. Faces came
and went at many windows : sometimes pretty faces,
youthful faces, pleasant faces : sometimes the reverse :
but Toby knew no more (though he often speculated
on these trifles, standing idle in the streets) whence
they came, or where they went, or whether, when the
lips moved, one kind word was said of him in all the
year, than did the Chimes themselves.

Toby was not a casuist — that he knew of, at least
— and I don't mean to say that when he began to
take to the Bells, and to knit up his first rough ac-
quaintance with them into something of a closer and
more delicate woof, he passed through these consider-
ations one by one, or held any formal review or great
field-day in his thoughts. But what I mean to say
and do say is, that as the functions of Toby's body,
his digestive organs for example, did of their own
cunning, and by a great many operations of which he
was altogether ignorant, and the knowledge of which

THE FIRST QUARTER. 13

would have astonished him very much, arrive at a
certain end ; so his mental faculties, without his
privity or concurrence, set all these wheels and springs
in motion, with a thousand others, when they worked
to bring about his liking for the Bells.

And though I had said his love, I would not have
recalled the word, though it would scarcely have ex-
pressed his complicated feeling. For, being but a
simple man, he invested them with a strange and
solemn character. They were so mysterious, often
heard and never seen ; so high up, so far oiF, so full
of such a deep strong melody, that he regarded them
with a species of awe ; and sometimes when he looked
up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half
expected to be beckoned to by something which was not
a Bell, and yet was what he heard so often sounding in
the Chimes. For all this, Toby scouted with indigna-
tion a certain flying rumour that the Chimes were
haunted, as implying the possibility of their being
connected with any Evil thing. In short, they were
very often in his ears, and very often in his thoughts,
but always in his good opinion ; and he very often

14 THE CHIMES.

got sucli a crick in his neck bj staring with his
mouth wide open, at the steeple where they hung, that
he was fain to take an extra trot or two, afterwards,
to cure it.

The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold
day, when the last drowsy sound of Twelve o'clock, just
struck, was humming like a melodious monster of a
Bee, and not by any means a busy Bee, all through
the steeple.

" Dinner-time eh ! " said Toby, trotting up and
down before the church. *' Ah ! "

Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very
red, and he winked very much, and his shoulders
were very near his ears, and his legs were very stiff;
and altogether he was evidently a long way upon the
frosty side of cool.

'* Dinner-time, eh ! " repeated Toby, using his
right hand muffler like an infantine boxing-glove, and
punishing his chest for being cold. ** Ah-h-h-h ! "

He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two.

"There's nothing," said Toby, breaking fortli
afresh,— but here he stopped short in his trot, and

THE FIRST QUARTER. 16

with a face of great interest and some alarm, felt
his nose carefully all the way up. It was but a little
way : not being much of a nose : and he had soon
finished.

'* I thought it was gone," said Toby, trotting off
again. ** It's aU right, however. I am sure I couldn't
blame it if it was to go. It has a precious hard ser-
vice of it in the bitter weather, and precious little to
look forward to : for I don't take snuff myself. It 's
a good deal tried, poor creetur, at the best of times ;
for when it does get hold of a pleasant whiff or so
(which an't too often), it's generally from somebody
else's dinner, a-coming home from the baker's."

The reflection reminded him of that other reflec-
tion, which he had left unfinished.

"There's nothing," said Toby, "more regular in
its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less
regular in its coming round than dinner. That 's the
great difference between 'em. It 's took me a long time
to find it out. I wonder whether it would be worth
any gentleman's while, now, to buy that obserwation
for the Papers ; or the ParUament ! "

16 THE CHIMES.

Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his
head in self-depreciation.

" Why ! Lord ! " said Toby. '' The Papers is full
of obserwations as it is ; and so 's the Parliament.
Here's last week's paper, now;" taking a very dirty
one from his pocket, and holding it from him at arm's
length ; ** full of obserwations ! Pull of obserwations!
I like to know the news as well as any man," said
Toby, slowly ; folding it a little smaller, and putting
it in his pocket again ; "but it almost goes against
the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens
me, almost. I don't know what we poor people are
coming to. Lord send we may be coming to some-
thing better in the New Year nigh upon us ! "

** Why, father, father ! " said a pleasant voice,
hard by.

But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot back-
wards and forwards : musing as he went, and talking
to himself.

'* It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or
be righted," said Toby. ** I had n't much schooling,
myself, when I was young ; and I can't make out

THE FIRST QUARTER. l7

whether we have any business on the face of the
earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a
little ; and sometimes I think we must be intruding.
I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able
to make up my mind whether there is any good at all
in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to do
dreadful things ; we seem to give a deal of trouble ;
we are always being complained of and guarded
against. One way or another, we fill the papers.
Talk of a New Year ! " said Toby, mournfully. ** I can
bear up as well as another man at most times ; better
than a good many, for I am as strong as a lion, and
all men an't ; but supposing it should really be that
we have no right to a New Year — supposing we
really are intruding "

" Why, father, father ! " said the pleasant voice
again.

Toby heard it this time ; started ; stopped ; and
shortening his sight, which had been directed a long
way off as seeking for enlightenment in the very heart
of the approaching year, found himself face to face
with his own child, and looking close into her eyes.

16 THE CHIMES.

Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a
world of looking in, before their depth was fathomed.
Dark eyes, that reflected back the eyes which searched
them ; not flashingly, or at the owner's will, but with a
clear, calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming kin-
dred with that light which Heaven called into being.
Eyes that were beautiful and true, and beaming with
Hope. With Hope so young and fresh ; with Hope
so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the twenty
years of work and poverty on which they had looked ;
that they became a voice to Trotty Yeck, and said :
" I think we have some business here — a little! "

Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and
squeezed the blooming face between his hands.

** Why Pet," said Trotty. '' What 's to-do? I
didn't expect you to-day, Meg."

*' Neither did I expect to come, father," cried the
girl, nodding her head and smiling as she spoke.
" But here I am ! And not alone ; not alone ! "

<< Why you don't mean to say," observed Trotty,
looking curiously at a covered basket which she car-
ried in her hand, " that you "

THE FIRST QUARTER. 10

* ' Smell it, father dear, ' ' said Meg. "Only smell it 1 "

Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a
great hm-ry, when she gaily interposed her hand.

** No, no, no,'' said Meg, with the glee of a child.
*' Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the
corner ; just the lit-tle ti-ny cor-ner, you know," said
Meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost
gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were
afraid of being overheard by something inside the
basket ; *' there. JSTow. What 's that ? "

Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of
the basket, and cried out in a rapture :

'' Why, it 's hot!"

*' It 's burning hot ! " cried Meg. " Ha, ha, ha !
It 's scalding hot ! "

'* Ha, ha, ha ! " roared Toby, with a sort of kick.
" It 's scalding hot."

" But what is it^ father ?" said Meg. *' Come ! You
haven't guessed what it is. And you must guess what
it is. I can't think of taking it out, till you guess
what it is. Don't be in such a hurry ! Wait a minute !
A little bit more of the cover. Now guess ! "
c 2

20 THE CHIMES.

Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess
right too soon ; shrinking away, as she held the hasket
towards him ; curling up her pretty shoulders ; stop-
ping her ear with her hand, as if hy so doing she
could keep the right word out of Toby's lips ; and
laughing softly the whole time.

Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent
down his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration
at the lid ; the grin upon his withered face expanding
in the process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas.

*' Ah ! It 's very nice," said Toby. " It an't — I
suppose it an't Polonies ?''

*' No, no, no ! " cried Meg, delighted. ** Nothing
like Polonies ! "

** No," said Toby, after another sniff. '* It's — it's
mellower than Polonies. It 's very nice. It improves
every moment. It 's too decided for Trotters. An't
it?"

Meg was in an ecstacy. He could not have gone
wider of the mark than Trotters — except Polonies.

" Liver?" said Toby, communing with himself.
" No. There 's a mildness about it that don't answer

THE FIRST QUARTER. 21

to liver. Pettitoes ? No. It an't faint enough for
pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of Cocks' heads.
And I know it an't sausages. I '11 tell you what it is.
It 's chitterlings ! "

*' No, it an't !" cried Meg, in a hurst of delight.
" No, it an't ! "

** Why, what am I a thinking of ! " said Tohy, sud-
denly recovering a position as near the perpendicular
as it was possible for him to assume. ** I shall forget
my own name next. It 's tripe ! "

Tripe it was ; and Meg, in high joy, protested he
should say, in half a minute more, it was the best
tripe ever stewed.

** And so," said Meg, busying herself exultingly
with the basket, '* I'U lay the cloth at once, father ;
for I have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the
basin up in a pocket handkerchief ; and if I like to
be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and
call it a cloth, there 's no law to prevent me ; is there,
father?"

* ' Not that I know of, my dear, ' ' said Toby. ' ' But
they 're always a bringing up some new law or other."

22 TPIE CHIMES.

** And according to what I was reading you in the
paper the other day, father ; what the Judge said,
you know ; we poor people are supposed to know them
all. Ha ha ! What a mistake ! My goodness me,
how clever they think us ! *^

'' Yes, my dear," cried Trotty ; " and they 'd be
very fond of any one of us that did know 'em all. He'd
grow fat upon the work he 'd get, that man, and be
popular with the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood.
Very much so !

'* He 'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he
was, if it smelt like this," said Meg cheerfully. *'Make
haste, for there 's a hot potatoe besides, and half a
pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. \Vhere will you
dine, father ? On the Post, or on the Steps ? Dear,
dear, how grand we are. Two places to choose
from ! "

'* The steps to-day, my Pet," said Trotty. ** Steps
in dry weather. Post in wet. There's a greater
conveniency in the steps at all times, because of the
sitting down ; but they're rheumatic in the damp."

*' Then here," said Meg, clapping her hands, after

THE FIRST QUARTER. 23

a moment's bustle ; ** here it is, all ready ! And
beautiful it looks ! Come, father. Come ! "

Since his discovery of the contents of the basket,
Trotty had been standing looking at her — and had
been speaking too — in an abstracted manner, which
showed that though she was the object of his thoughts
and eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither
saw nor thought about her as she was at that moment,
but had before him some imaginary rough sketch
or drama of her future life. Roused, now, by her
cheerful summons, he shook off a melancholy shake
of the head which was just coming upon him, and
trotted to her side. As he was stooping to sit down,
the Chimes rang.

*' Amen ! " said Trotty, pulling off his hat and
looking up towards them.

'* Amen to the Bells, father ? " cried Meg.

'' They broke in like a grace, my dear, " said Trotty,
taking his seat. *' They'd say a good one, I am sure,
if they could. Many 's the kind thing they say to me. ' '

*' The Bells do, father ! " laughed Meg, as she set
the basin, and a knife and fork before him. ' ' Well ! ' '

24 THE CHIMES.

** Seem to, my Pet," said Trotty, falling to with
great vigour. ** And where 's the difference ? If I
hear 'em, what does it matter whether they speak it
or not? Why bless you, my dear," said Toby,
pointing at the tower with his fork, and becoming
more animated under the influence of dinner, " how
often have I heard them bells say, * Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, keep a good heart Toby ! Toby Veck,
Toby Yeck, keep a good heart Toby ! ' A million
times ? More ! "

** Well, I never !" cried Meg.

She had, though — over and over again. For it
was Toby's constant topic.

" When things is very bad," said Trotty ; ^* very bad
indeed, I mean ; almost at the worst ; then it 's * Toby
Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby ! Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby ! ' that way."

** And it comes — at last, father," said Meg, with a
touch of sadness in her pleasant voice.

' * Always, ' ' answered the unconscious Toby. ' ' Never
fails."

While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no

THE FIRST QUARTER. 25

pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him,
but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and
chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potatoe,
and from hot potatoe back again to tripe, with an
unctuous and unflagging reUsh. But happening now
to look all round the street — in case anybody should
be beckoning from any door or window, for a porter
— his eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg :
sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded : and
only busy in watching his progress with a smile of
happiness.

*'Why, Lord forgive me!'' said Trotty, dropping
his knife and fork, **My dove! Meg! why didn't
you tell me what a beast I was?"

^* Father?"

** Sitting here," said Trotty, in penitent explana-
tion, ** cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself;
and you before me there, never so much as breaking
your precious fast, nor wanting to, when"

"But I have broken it, father," interposed his
daughter, laughing, "all to bits. I have had my
dinner."

26 THE CHIMES.

" Nonsense," said Trotty. ''Two dinners in one
day I It an't possible ! You might as well tell me that
two New Year's Days will come together, or that I
have had a gold head all my life, and never changed
it."

" I have had my dinner, father, for all that," said
Meg, coming nearer to him. " And if you'll go on
with yours, I '11 tell you how and where ; and how
your dinner came to be brought ; and — and something
else besides."

Toby still appeared incredulous ; but she looked
into his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand
upon his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the
meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork
again, and went to work. But much more slowly
than before, and shaking his head, as if he were not
at all pleased with himself.

" I had my dinner, father," said Meg, after a little
hesitation, " with — with Richard. His dinner-time
was early ; and as he brought his dinner with him
when he came to see me, we — we had it together,
father."

THE FIRST QUARTER. 27

Trottj took a little beer, and smacked his lips.
Then he said, *' Oh ! " — because she waited.

" And Richard says, father — " Meg resumed. Then
stopped.

'' What does Richard say, Meg ? " asked Toby.

** Richard says, father — " Another stoppage.

*' Richard 's a long time saying it," said Toby.

** He says then, father," Meg continued, lifting up
her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite
plainly ; ** another year is nearly gone, and where is
the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now ?
He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor
then ; but we are young now, and years will make us
old before we know it. He says that if we wait :
people in our condition : until we see our way quite
clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed — the
common way — the Grave, father."

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have
drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty
held his peace.

*' And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and

28 THE CHIMES.

think we might have cheered and helped each other !
How hard in all our lives to love each other ; and to
grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing,
growing old and grej. Even if I got the better of itj
and forgot him (which I never could), oh father dear,
how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now, and
live to have it slowly drained out every drop, without
the recollection of one happy moment of a woman's
life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me
better ! "

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and
said more gaily : that is to say, with here a laugh, and
there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together :

** So Richard says, father ; as his work was yester-
day made certain for some time to come, and as I love
him and have loved him full three years — ah ! longer
than that, if he knew it ! — will I marry him on New
Year's Day ; the best and happiest day, he says, in
the whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring
good fortune with it. It 's a short notice, father — isn't
it ? — but I haven't my fortune to be settled, or my
wedding dresses to be made, like the great ladies.

THE FIRST QUARTER. 29

father — have I ? And he said so much, and said it
in his way ; so strong and earnest, and all the time
so kind and gentle ; that I said I 'd come and talk to
you, father. And as they paid the money for that
work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am
sure !), and as you have fared very poorly for a whole
week, and as I coiddn't help wishing there should he
something to make this day a sort of holiday to you
as well as a dear and happy day to me father, I
made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.'*

" And see how he leaves it cooling on the step ! "
said another voice.

It was the voice of this same Richard, who had
come upon them unobserved, and stood before the
father and daughter : looking down upon them with
a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout
sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made,
powerful youngster he was ; with eyes that sparkled
like the red-hot droppings from a furnace fire ; black
hair that curled about his swarthy temples rarely ; and
a smile — a smile that bore out Meg's eulogium on his
style of conversation.

30 THE CHIMES.

"See how he leaves it cooling on the step ! " said
Richard. " Meg don't know what he likes. Not she ! "

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately
reached up his hand to Richard, and was going to
address him in a great hurry, when the house-door
opened without any warning, and a footman very
nearly put his foot in the tripe.

*' Out of the vays here, will you ! You must always
go and be a settin on our steps, must you ! You
can't go and give a turn to none of the neighbours
never, can't you ! Will you clear the road or won't
you?"

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant,
as they had already done it.

" What 's the matter, what 's the matter ! " said the
gentleman for whom the door was opened : coming
out of the house at that kind of light-heavy pace —
that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-
trot— with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-
hill of life, wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain,
and clean linen, ma^ come out of his house : not
only without any abatement of his dignity, but with

THE FIRST QUARTER. Si

an expression of having important and wealthy en-
gagements elsewhere. *' What 's the matter. What 's
the matter !"

** You 're always a being begged, and prayed, upon
your bended knees you are," said the footman with
great emphasis to TrottyVeck, ** to let our door-
steps be. Why don't you let 'em be? Can't you let
'em be?"

** There ! That '11 do, that '11 do !" said the gen-
tleman. ** Halloa there ! Porter !" beckoning with
his head to TrottyVeck. ** Come here. What's
that ? Your dinner ? ' '

" Yes sir," said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a
corner.

** Don't leave it there," exclaimed the gentleman.
** Bring it here, bring it here. So ! This is your
dinner, is it ? "

*' Yes Sir," repeated Trotty, looking, with a fixed
eye and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had
reserved for a last delicious tit-bit ; which the gentle-
man was now tm*ning over and over on the end of the
fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One

82 THE CHIMES.

was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a
meagre habit, and a disconsolate face ; who kept his
hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-
and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from
that custom ; and was not particularly well brushed
or washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well con-
ditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons,
and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very
red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in
his body were squeezed up into his head ; which
perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance
of being rather cold about the heart.

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to
the first one by the name of Filer ; and they both
drew near together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly
short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the rem-
nant of Toby's dinner before he could make out what
it was, that Toby's heart leaped up into his mouth.
But Mr. Filer did n't eat it.

*' This is a description of animal food. Alderman,"
said Filer, making little punches in it, with a pencil-
case, " commonly known to the labouring population
of this country, by the name of tripe."

THE FIRST QUARTER. 33

The Alderman laughed, and winked ; for he was a
merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow
too ! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to
he imposed upon. Deep in the people's hearts ! He
knew them. Cute did. I helieve you !

*'But who eats tripe?'* said Mr. Filer, looking
round. " Tripe is without an exception the least
economical, and the most wasteful article of consump-
tion that the markets of this country can hy possi-
hihty produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has
heen found to he, in the hoihng, seven eighths of a
fifth more than the loss upon a pound of any other
animal substance whatever. Tripe is more expen-
sive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-
apple. Taking into account the number of animals
slaughtered yearly within the hills of mortality alone ;
and forming a low estimate of the quantity of tripe
which the carcases of those animals, reasonably well
butchered, would yield ; I find that the waste on that
amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of
five hundred men for ^ye months of thirty-one days
each, and a February over. The Waste, the Waste ! "^

34

THE CHIMES.

'^■•

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs
shook under him. He seemed to
have starved a garrison of five hun-
dred men with his own hand.

THE FIRST QUARTER. 35

** Who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, warmly.
** Who eats tripe?"

Trotty made a miserable bow.

** You do, do you ? " said Mr. Filer. " Then I '11
tell you something. You snatch your tripe, my
friend, out of the mouths of widows and orphans."

** I hope not Sir," said Trotty, faintly. ** I 'd
sooner die of want ! "

" Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned.
Alderman," said Mr. Filer, *'by the estimated num-
ber of existing widows and orphans, and the result
will be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a
grain is left for that man. Consequently, he's a
robber.'*

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no con-
cern to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It
was a relief to get rid of it, anyhow.

*'And what do you say?" asked the Alderman,
jocosely, of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat.
** You have heard friend Filer. What do you say ? "

** What's it possible to say?" returned the gen-
tleman. " What is to be said ? Who can take any
D 2

36 THE CHIMES.

interest in a fellow like this," meaning Trotty ; **in
such degenerate times as these. Look at him ! What
an ohject ! The good old times, the grand old
times, the great old times ! Those were the times
for a hold peasantry, and all that sort of thing.
Those were the times for every sort of thing, in fact.
There's nothing now-a-days. Ah ! " sighed the red-
faced gentleman. " The good old times, the good
old times ! "

The gentleman did n*t specify what particular times
he alluded to ; nor did he say whether he ohjected to
the present times, from a disinterested consciousness
that they had done nothing very remarkahle in pro-
ducing himself.

** The good old times, the good old times," re-
peated the gentleman. " What times they were !
They were the only times. It 's of no use talking
ahout any other times, or discussing what the people
are in these times. You do n't call these, times, do
you ? I don't. Look into Strutt's Costumes, and see
what a Porter used to be, in any of the good old
English reigns."

THE FIRST QUARTER. 37

" He hadn't, in his very hest circumstances, a shiil
to his back, or a stocking to his foot ; and there was
scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put into
his mouth," said Mr. Filer. " I can prove it, by
tables.''

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good
old times, the grand old times, the great old times.
No matter what anybody else said, he still went
turning round and round in one set form of words
concerning them ; as a poor squirrel turns and turns
in its revolving cage ; touching the mechanism, and
trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct per-
ceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of
his deceased Millennium.

It is possible that poor old Trotty's faith in these very
vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt
vague enough, at that moment. One thing, however,
was plain to him, in the midst of his distress ; to
wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in
details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many
other mornings, were well founded. ** No, no.
We can't go right or do right," thought Trotty

38 THE CHIMES.

in despair. " There is no good in us. We are born
bad!'^

But Trotty bad a father's heart within him ; which
had somehow got into his breast in spite of this de-
cree ; and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush
of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by these
wise gentlemen. ** God help her," thought poor
Trotty. ** She will know it soon enough."

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith,
to take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her
softly at a little distance, that he only became con-
scious of this desire, simultaneously with Alderman
Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet had his say,
but he was a philosopher, too — practical, though !
Oh, very practical ! — and, as he had no idea of losing
any portion of his audience, he cried *' Stop !"

** Now, you know," said the Alderman, addressing
his two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his
face, which was habitual to him, " I am a plain man,
and a practical man ; and I go to work in a plain
practical way. That 's my way. There is not the
least mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of

THE FIRST QUARTER. 39

people if you only understand 'em, and can talk to 'em
in their own manner. Now, you Porter ! Don't you ever
tell me, or anybody else my friend, that you haven't
always enough to eat, and of the best ; because I
know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and
you can't * chaff' me. You imderstand what * chaff '
means, eh? That's the right word, isn't it ? Ha,
ha, ha! Lord bless you," said the Alderman, turn-
ing to his friends again, *'it's the easiest thing on
earth to deal with this sort of people, if you only un-
derstand 'em."

Famous man for the common people. Alderman
Cute ! Never out of temper with them ! Easy, affable,
joking, knowing gentleman !

"You see my friend," pursued the Alderman,
** there's a great deal of nonsense talked about Want
— * hard up,' you know : that 's the phrase is n't it ?
ha! ha! ha! — and I intend to Put it Down. There 's
a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation,
and I mean to Put it Down. That 's all ! Lord bless
you," said the Alderman, turning to his friends
again, " you may Put Down anything among this

40 THE CHIMES.

sort of people, if jou only know the way to set about
it!"

Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm.
He didn't seem to know what he was doing though.

** Your daughter, eh ? " said the Alderman, chuck-
ing her familiarly under the chin.

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman
Cute ! Knew what pleased them ! Not a bit of
pride !

** Where 's her mother ? " asked that worthy gen-
tleman.

" Dead," said Toby. ** Her mother got up linen ;
and was called to Heaven when She was born."

" Not to get up linen there, I suppose," remarked
the Alderman pleasantly.

Toby might or might not have been able to sepa-
rate his wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But
query : If Mrs. Alderman Cute had gone to Heaven,
would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as hold-
ing any state or station there ?

'* And you 're making love to her, are you ? " said
Cute to the young smith.

THE FIRST QUARTER. 41

*' Yes," returned Richard quickly, for he was
nettled by the question. ** And we are going to be
married on New Year's Day."

'*■ What do you mean ! " cried Filer sharply.
** Married ! "

" Why, yes, we 're thinking of it, Master," said
Richard. " We 're rather in a hurry you see, in case
it should be Put Down first."

" Ah ! " cried Filer, with a groan. ** Put that
down indeed. Alderman, and you'll do something.
Married ! Married ! ! The ignorance of the first
principles of political economy on the part of these
people ; their improvidence ; their wickedness ; is, by
Heavens ! enough to — Now look at that couple, will
you!"

Well ! They were worth looking at. And marriage
seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need
have in contemplation.

" A man may live to be as old as Methusaleh,"
said Mr. Filer, ** and may labour all his life for the
benefit of such people as those ; and may heap up
facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures.

42 THE CHIMES.

mountains high and dry ; and lie can no more hope
to persuade 'em that they have no right or business
to be married, than he can hope to persuade 'em that
they have no earthly right or business to be born.
And that we know they have n't. We reduced it to a
mathematical certainty long ago."

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his
right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as
to say to both his friends, ** Observe me, wiU you ?
Keep your eye on the practical man ! " — and called
Meg to him.

" Come here, my girl !" said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting,
wrathfully, within the last few minutes ; and he was
indisposed to let her come. But setting a constraint
upon himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg
approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her
hand within his arm still, but looked from face to face
as wildly as a sleeper in a dream.

** Now I'm going to give you a word or two of
good advice, my girl," said the Alderman, in his nice
easy way. ** It's my place to give advice, you know.

THE FIRST QUARTER. 43

because I'm a Justice. You know I'm a Jufetice, don't
you?"

Meg timidly said, ** Yes." But everybody knew
Alderman Cute was a Justice ! Oh dear, so active a
Justice always ! Who such a mote of brightness in
the public eye, as Cute !

" You are going to be married, you say," pursued
the Alderman. *' Very unbecoming and indelicate in
one of your sex ! But never mind that. After you
are married, you'll quarrel with your husband, and
come to be a distressed wife. You may think not :
but you wiU, because I tell you so. Now I give you
fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put
distressed wives Down. So don't be brought before
me. You'll have children — boys. Those boys will
grow up bad of course, and run wild in the streets,
without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend !
rU convict 'em summarily, everyone, for I am deter-
mined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down.
Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely)
and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be turned
out of doors, and wander up and down the streets.

44 THE CHIMES.

Now don't wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved
to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young mo-
thers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my determination to
Put Down. Don't think to plead iUness as an excuse
with me ; or hahies as an excuse with me ; for all
sick persons and young children (I hope you know
the church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am deter-
mined to Put Down. And if you attempt, despe-
rately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudu-
lently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself,
I '11 have no pity on you, for I have made up my mind
to Put all suicide Down. If there is one thing," said
the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, ** on which
I can he said to have made up my mind more than on
another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don't try it
on. That's the phrase, is n't it ! Ha, ha ! now we
understand each other."

Toby knew not whether to he agonised or glad to
see that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped
her lover's hand. '

*' As for you, you dull dog," said the Alderman,
turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity

THE FIRST QUARTER. 45

to the young smith, " what are you thinking of heing
married for ? What do you want to be married for, you
silly fellow ! If I was a fine, young, strapping chap
like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough
to pin myself to a woman's apron-strings ! Why,
she'll be an old woman before you're a middle-aged
man ! And a pretty figure you'll cut then, with a
draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squaUing children
crying after you wherever you go ! "

Oh, he knew how to banter the common people,
Alderman Cute !

** There ! Go along with you," said the Alderman,
** and repent. Don't make such a fool of yourself as
to get married on New Year's Day. You'll think
very differently of it long before next New Year's
Day : a trim young feUow like you, with all the
girls looking after you. There ! Go along with
you I

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand,
or interchanging bright glances : but she in tears, he
gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts
that had so lately made old Toby's leap up from its

46 THE CHIMES.

faintness ? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on
Ms head !) had Put them Down.

"As you happen to be here," said the Alderman to
Toby, ** you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be
quick ? You're an old man."

Toby,, who had been looking after Meg, quite
stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very
quick, and very strong.

** How old are you ? " enquired the Alderman.

" Fm over sixty, Sir," said Toby.

*' Oh ! This man's a great deal past the average
age, you know," cried Mr. Filer, breaking in as if his
patience would bear some trying, but this really was
carrying matters a little too far.

" I feel I'm intruding. Sir,'* said Toby. " I — I
misdoubted it this morning. Oh dear me ! "

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the let-
ter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling
too ; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he
would rob a certain given number of persons of nine-
pence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence ; and
thought himself very well off to get that.

TRE FIRST QUARTER. 47

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his
friends, and walked off in high feather ; but imme-
diately came hurrying back alone, as if he had for-
gotten something.

** Porter ! " said the Alderman.

*^ Sir ! " said Toby.

" Take care of that daughter of yours. She 's
much too handsome."

" Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or
other I suppose," thought Toby, looking at the six-
pence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. ** She 's
been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a
piece, I shouldn't wonder. It 's very dreadful ! "

** She 's much too handsome, my man," repeated
the Alderman. ** The chances are, that she '11 come
to no good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take
care of her ! " With which, he hurried off again.

" Wrong every way. Wrong every way ! " said
Trotty, clasping his hand^. ** Bom bad. No busi-
ness here ! "

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said
the words. Full, loud, and sounding — but with no
encouragement. No, not a drop.

48 THE CHIMES.

'' The tune's changed," cried the old man, as he
listened. '* There 's not a word of all that fancy in
it. Why should there he ? I have no business with
the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me
die ! "

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made
the very au' spin. Put 'em down, Put 'em down !
Good old Times, Good old Times ! Facts and figures,
Facts and figures ! Put 'em down, Put 'em down !
If they said anything they said this, till the brain of
Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands,
as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed
action, as it happened ; for finding the letter in one
of them, and being by that means reminded of his
charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and
trotted ofi".

50 THE CHIMES.

town. The greatest district of the town. It must
have been the greatest district of the town, because it
was commonly called The World by its inhabitants.

The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby's
hand, than another letter. Not because the Alder-
man had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and
no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on
the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold
and silver with which it was associated.

" How different from us ! " thought Toby, in all
simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direc-
tion. '' Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mor-
tality, by the number of gentlefolks able to buy
'em ; and whose share does he take but his own !
As to snatching tripe from anybody's mouth — he 'd
scorn it ! "

With the involimtary homage due to such an
exalted character, Toby interposed a corner of his
apron between the letter and his fingers.

"His children," said Trotty, and a mist rose
before his eyes ; "his daughters — Gentlemen may
win their hearts and marry them ; they may be happy

THE SECOND QUARTER. 51

wives and mothers ; they may be handsome like my
darling M — e — "

He couldn't finish her name. The final letter
swelled in his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet.

'' Never mind," thought Trotty. *' I know what I
mean. That's more than enough for me." And
with this consolatory rumination, trotted on.

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was
bracing, crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though
powerless for warmth, looked brightly down upon the
ice it was too weak to melt, and set a radiant glory
there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a
poor man's lesson from the wintry sun ; but he was
past that, now.

The Year was Old that day. The patient Year had
lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slan-
derers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring,
summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through
the destined round, and now laid down its weary head
to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active
happiness, itself, but messenger of many joys to
others, it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling
E 2

52 THE CHIMES.

days and patient hours remembered, and to die in
peace. Trotty might have read a poor man's alle-
gory in the fading year ; but he was past that now.

And only he ? Or has the like appeal been ever made,
by seventy years at once upon an Enghsh labourer's
head, and made in vain !

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were
decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant
Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with wel-
comes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books
and toys for the New Year, ghttering trinkets for the
New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of
fortune for the New Year ; new inventions to beguile
it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-
books ; the coming of its moons, and stars, and
tides, was known beforehand to the moment ; aU the
workings of its seasons in their days and nights, were
calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could
work sums in men and women.

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the
New Year ! The Old Year was already looked upon
as dead ; and its effects were selling cheap hke some

THE SECOND QUARTER. 53

drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last
Year's and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was
gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches
of its unborn successor !

Trottj had no portion, to his thinking, in the New
Year or the Old.

" Put 'em down, put 'em down. Facts and Figures,
facts and figures. Good old Times, good old Times.
Put 'em down, put 'em down" — ^his trot went to that
measure, and would fit itself to nothing else.

But even that one, melancholy as it was, brought
him, in due time, to the end of his journey. To the
mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parlia-
ment.

The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter !
Not of Toby's order. Quite another thing. His place
was the ticket though ; not Toby's.

This Porter underwent some hard panting before
he could speak ; having breathed himself by coming
incautiously out of his chair, without first taking time
to think about it and compose his mind. When he had
found his voice — which it took him some time to do.

54 THE CHIMES.

for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load of
meat — lie said in a fat whisper,

" Who's it from ?"

Toby told him.

" You 're to take it in, yourself," said the Porter,
pointing to a room at the end of a long passage, open-
ing from the hall. '' Everything goes straight in, on
this day of the year. You 're not a bit too soon, for
the carriage is at the door now, and they have only
come to town for a couple of hours, a 'purpose."

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already)
with great care, and took the way pointed out to him ;
observing as he went that it was an awfully grand
house, but hushed and covered up, as if the family
were in the country. Knocking at the room door, he
was told to enter from within ; and doing so found
himself in a spacious library, where, at a table strewn
with files and papers, were a stately lady in a bonnet ;
and a not very stately gentleman in black who wrote
from her dictation ; while another, and an older, and
a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane
were on the table, walked up and down, with one

hand in his breast,
and looked com-
placently from time

56 THE CHIMES.

to time at his own picture — a full length ; a very-
full length — hanging over the fire-place.

" What is this?" said the last-named gentleman.
*' Mr. Fish, will you have the goodness to attend ?"

Mr. Fish hegged pardon, and taking the letter from
Tohy, handed it, with great respect.

"From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph."

**Is this all? Have you nothing else. Porter?"
inquired Sir Joseph.

Toby replied in the negative.

" You have no bill or demand upon me ; my name
is Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley ; of any kind from any-
body, have you ?" said Sir Joseph. " If you have,
present it. There is a cheque-book by the side of
Mr. Fish. I allow nothing to be carried into the
New Year. Every description of account is settled
in this house at the close of the old one. So that if
death was to — to — "

** To cut," suggested Mr. Fish.

** To sever, Sir," returned Sir Joseph, with great
asperity, " the cord of existence — my affairs would be
found, I hope, in a state of preparation."

THE SECOND QUARTER. 57

"My dear Sir Joseph!'* said tlie lady, who
was greatly younger than the gentleman. *' How
shocking !"

* ' My lady Bowley, ' ' returned Sir Joseph, floundering
now and then, as in the great depth of his ohserva-
tions, *' at this season of the year we should think of
— of — ourselves. We should look into our — our
accounts. We should feel that every return of so
eventful a period in human transactions, involves mat-
ters of deep moment between a man and his — and his
banker.''

Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the
full morality of what he was saying ; and desired that
even Trotty should have an opportunity of being "im-
proved by such discourse. Possibly he had this end
before him in still forbearing to break the seal of the
letter, and in telling Trotty to wait where he was, a
minute.

" You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady — "
observed Sir Joseph.

" Mr. Fish has said that, I believe," returned his
lady, glancing at the letter. ** But, upon my word.

58 THE CHIMES.

Sir Joseph, I don't think I can let it go after all. It
is so very dear."

'' What is dear?" inquired Sir Joseph.

'^ That Charity, my love. They only allow two
votes for a subscription of ^ve pounds. Really mon-
strous!"

"My lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, *' you
surprise me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion
to the number of votes ; or is it, to a rightly-constituted
mind, in proportion to the number of applicants, and
the wholesome state of mind to which their canvass-
ing reduces them ? Is there no excitement of the
purest kind in having two votes to dispose of among
fifty people?"

** Not to me, I acknowledge," returned the lady.
** It bores one. Besides, one can't oblige one's
acquaintance. But you are the Poor Man's Friend,
you know. Sir Joseph. You think otherwise."

** I am the Poor Man's Friend," observed Sir
Joseph, glancing at the poor man present. "As such
I may be taunted. As such I have been taunted.
But I ask no other title."

THE SECOND QUARTER. 59

*' Bless him for a noble gentleman ! " thought
Trotty.

** I don't agree with Cute here, for instance," said
Sir Joseph, holding out the letter. " I don't agree
with the Filer party. I don't agree with any party.
My friend the Poor Man, has no business with any-
thing of that sort, and nothing of that sort has any
business with^him. My friend the Poor Man, in my
district, is my business. No man or body of men has
any right to interfere between my friend and me.
That is the ground I take. I assume a — a paternal
character towards my friend. I say, * My good fel-
low, I will treat you paternally.' "

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel
more comfortable.

"Your only business, my good fellow," pursued
Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; ** your
only business in life is with me. You needn't trouble
yourself to think about anything. I will think for
you ; I know what is good for you ; I am your per-
petual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-
wise Providence ! Now, the design of your creation is :

60 THE CHIMES.

not that you should swill, and guzzle, and associate
your enjoyments, brutally, with food" — Toby thought
remorsefully of the tripe — " but that you should feel
the Dignity of Labor ; go forth erect into the cheer-
ful morning air, and — and stop there. Live hard and
temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial,
bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your
rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in
your dealings (I set you a good example ; you will
find Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary, with a cash-
box before him at all times) ; and you may trust me
to be your Friend and Father."

*' Nice children, indeed. Sir Joseph ! " said the
lady, with a shudder. ** Rheumatisms, and fevers, and
crooked legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors !"

" My lady," returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity,
" not the less am I the Poor Man's Friend and
Father. Not the less shall he receive encourage-
ment at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be put
in communication with Mr. Fish. Every New- Year's
Day, myself and friends will drink his health. Once
every year, myself and friends will address him with

THE SECOND QUARTER. 61

the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even
perhaps receive ; in public, in the presence of the
gentry ; a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld
no more by these stimulants, and the Dignity of
Labor, he sinks into his comfortable grave, then my
lady " — here Sir Joseph blew his nose — " I will be
a Friend and Father — on the same terms — to his
children.''

Toby was greatly moved.

" Oh ! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph ! "
cried his wife.

** My lady," said Sir Joseph, quite majestically,
** Ingratitude is known to be the sin of that class.
I expect no other return."

" Ah ! Born bad ! " thought Toby. " Nothing
melts us ! "

** What man can do, /do," pursued Sir Joseph.
'* I do my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father ;
and I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating
on all occasions the one great moral lesson which
that class requires. That is, entire Dependence on
myself. They have no business whatever with — with

62 THE CHIMES.

themselves. If wicked and designing persons tell them
otherwise, and they become impatient and discon-
tented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and
black-hearted ingratitude ; which is undoubtedly the
case ; I am their Friend and Father still. It is so
Ordained. It is in the nature of things."

With that great sentiment, he opened the Alder-
man's letter ; and read it.

a Very polite and attentive, I am sure ! " exclaimed
Sir Joseph. ** My lady, the Alderman is so obliging
as to remind me that he has had ' the distinguished
honor ' — ^he is very good — of meeting me at the house
of our mutual friend Deedles, the banker ; and he does
me the favor to inquire whether it will be agreeable
to me to have Will Fern put down.

" Most agreeable ! " replied my Lady Bowley.
*' The worst man among them ! He has been com-
mitting a robbery, I hope ?"

'' Why, no," said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter.
" Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to
London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to
better himself — that 's his story), and being found at

THE SECOND QUARTER. 63

night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody and
carried next morning before the Alderman. The
Alderman observes (very properly) that he is deter-
mined to put this sort of thing down ; and that if it
will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down,
he will be happy to begin with him."

** Let him be made an example of, by all means,"
returned the lady. ** Last winter, when I introduced
pinking and eyelet-holeing among the men and boys
in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had
the lines,

Oh let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations,

set to music on the new system, for them to sing
the while ; this very Fern — I see him now — touched
that hat of his, and said, * I humbly ask your pardon
my lady, but ant I something different from a great
girl ? ' I expected it, of course ; who can expect any-
thing but insolence and ingratitude from that class of
people ? That is not to the purpose, however. Sir
Joseph ! Make an example of him ! "

64 THE CHIMES.

*' Hem ! " coughed Sir Joseph. " Mr. Fish, if you'll
have the goodness to attend " —

Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote
from Sir Joseph's dictation.

" Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted
to you for your courtesy in the matter of the man
William Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say
nothing favorable. I have uniformly considered my-
self in the hght of his Friend and Father, but have
been repaid (a common case I grieve to say) with in-
gratitude, and constant opposition to my plans. He is a
turbulent and rebellious spirit. His character will not
bear investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be
happy when he might. Under these circumstances,
it appears to me, I own, that when he comes before
you again (as you informed me he promised to do to-
morrow, pending your inquiries, and I think he may be
so far relied upon), his committal for some short term
as a Vagabond, would be a service to society, and
would be a salutary example in a country where —
for the sake of those who are, through good and evil
report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well

THE SECOND QUARTER. 65

as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided
class themselves — examples are greatly needed.
And I am," and so forth.

** It appears," remarked Sir Joseph when he had
signed this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, "as
if this were Ordained : really. At the close of the
year, I wind up my account and strike my balance,
even with William Fern !"

Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very
low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to
take the letter.

"With my compliments and thanks," said Sir
Joseph. "Stop!"

" Stop !" echoed Mr. Fish.

"You have heard, perhaps," said Sir Joseph,
oracularly, " certain remarks into which I have been
led respecting the solemn period of time at which
we have arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of
settling our affairs, and being prepared. You have ob-
served that I don't shelter myself behind my superior
standing in society, but that Mr. Fish — that gentle-
man — has a cheque-book at his elbow, and is in fact

66 THE CHIMES.

here, to enable me to turn over a perfectly new leaf,
and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account.
Now, my friend, can you lay your hand upon your
heart, and say, that you also have made preparation
for a New Year? "

" I am afraid Sir," stammered Trotty, looking
meekly at him, *' that I am a — a — little behind-hand
with the world. "

** Behind-hand with the world!" repeated Sir
Joseph Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

** I am afraid Sir," faltered Trotty, ** that there's
a matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs.
Chick enstalker."

" To Mrs. Chickenstalker !" repeated Sir Joseph,
in the same tone as before.

** A shop Sir," exclaimed Toby, **in the general
line. Also a — a little money on account of rent. A
very little Sir. It ought n't to be owing, I know, but
we have been hard put to it, indeed ! "

Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and
at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He
then made a despondent gesture with both hands at
once, as if he gave the thing up altogether.

THE SECOND QUARTER. 67

" How a man, even among this improvident and
impracticable race ; an old man ; a man grown grey ;
can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in
this condition ; how he can lie down on his bed at
night, and get up again in the morning, and — There ! "
he said, tm-ning his back on Trotty. *' Take the
letter. Take the letter ! "

** I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir,'' said Trotty,
anxious to excuse himself. ** We have been tried
very hard."

Sir Joseph still repeating ^* Take the letter, take
the letter ! " and Mr. Fish not only saying the same
thing, but giving additional force to the request by
motioning the bearer to the door, he had nothing for
it but to make his bow and leave the house. And in
the street, poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down
on his head, to hide the grief he felt at getting no
hold on the New Year, anywhere.

He didn't even lift his hat to look up at the Bell

tower when he came to the old church on his return.

He halted there a moment, from habit : and knew

that it was growing dark, and that the steeple rose

F 2

68 THE CHIMES.

above him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He
knew, too, that the Chimes would ring immediately ;
and that they sounded to his fancy, at such a time,
like voices in the clouds. But he only made the more
haste to deliver the Alderman's letter, and get out of
the way before they began ; for he dreaded to hear
them tagging " Friends and Fathers, Friends and
Fathers," to the burden they had rung out last.

Toby discharged himself of his commission, there-
fore, with all possible speed, and set off trotting home-
ward. But what with his pace, which was at best an
awkward one in the street ; and what with his hat,
which didn't improve it ; he trotted against some-
body in less than no time, and was sent staggering
out into the road.

** I beg your pardon, I'm sure ! " said Trotty,
pulling up his hat in great confusion, and between the
hat and the torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of
bee-hive. ** I hope I have n't hurt you."

As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an ab-
solute Samson, but that he was much more likely
to be hurt himself : and indeed, he had flown out into

THE SECOND QUARTER. 69

the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion
of his own strength, however, that he was in real
concern for the other party : and said again,

** I hope I have n't hurt you?"

The man against whom he had run ; a sun-browned,
sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and
a rough chin ; stared at him for a moment, as if he
suspected him to he in jest. But satisfied of his good
faith, he answered :

** No friend. You have not hurt me."

** Nor the child, I hope ? " said Trotty.

"Nor the child," returned the man. "I thank
you kindly."

As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried
in his arms, asleep ; and shading her face with the
long end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his
throat, went slowly on.

The tone in which he said ** I thank you kindly,"
penetrated Trotty 's heart. He was so jaded and foot-
sore, and so soiled with travel, and looked about him
so forlorn and strange, that it was a comfort to him
to be able to thank any one : no matter for how little.

70 THE CHIMES.

Toby stood gazing after him as he plodded wearily
away ; with the child's arm clinging romid his neck.

At the figure in the worn shoes — now the very
shade and ghost of shoes — rough leather leggings,
common frock, and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood
gazing : blind to the whole street. And at the child's
arm, clinging round its neck.

Before he merged into the darkness, the traveller
stopped ; and looking round, and seeing Trotty
standing there yet, seemed undecided whether to
return or go on. After doing first the one and then
the other, he came back ; and Trotty went half way
to meet him.

" You can tell me, perhaps,'' said the man with a
faint smile, " and if you can I am sure you will, and
I 'd rather ask you than another — where Alderman
Cute lives."

" Close at hand," replied Toby. ** I '11 show you
his house with pleasure."

** I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,"
said the man, accompanying Toby, " but I 'm un-
easy under suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to

THE SECOND QUARTER. 7l

be free to go and seek mj bread — I don't know
where. So, maybe he '11 forgive my going to his house
to-night."

" It 's impossible," cried Toby with a start, "that
your name 's Fern ! ' '

*'Eh!" cried the other, turning on him in
astonishment.

" Fern !. Will Fern ! " said Trotty.

*' That 's my name," replied the other.

*' Why then," cried Trotty, seizing him by the arm,
and looking cautiously round, ** for Heaven's sake
don't go to him ! Don't go to him ! He '11 put you
down as sure as ever you were born. Here ! come
up this alley, and I 'U tell you what I mean. Don't
goto him.^^

His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him
mad ; but he bore him company nevertheless. When
they were shrouded from observation, Trotty told him
what he knew, and what character he had received,
and all about it.

The subject of his history listened to it with a
calmness that surprised him. He did not contradict or

72 THE CHIMES.

interrupt it, once. He nodded his liead now and tlien
— more in corroboration of an old and worn out story,
it appeared, than in refutation of it ; and once or
twice threw back his hat, and passed his freckled hand
over a brow, where every furrow he had ploughed
seemed to have set its image in little. But he did no
more.

*' It 's true enough in the main," he said, " master.
I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it
be as 'tis. What odds ? I have gone against his
plans ; to my misfortun'. I can't help it ; I should do
the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentle-
folks will search and search, and pry and pry, and
have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they'll
help us to a dry good word ! Well ! I hope they
don't lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives
is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For
myself, master, I never took with that hand" — hold-
ing it before him — '' what was n't my own ; and never
held it back from work, however hard, or poorly paid.
Whoever can deny it, let him chop it off ! But when
work won't maintain me like a human creetur ; when

THE SECOND QUARTER. 73

my living is so bad, that I am Hungry, out of doors
and in ; when I see a whole working life begin that way,
go on that way, and end that way, without a chance
or change ; then I say to the gentlefolks * Keep away
from me ! Let my cottage be. My doors is dark
enough without your darkening of 'em more. Don't
look for me to come up into the Park to help the show
when there 's a Birthday, or a fine Speechmaking, or
what not. Act your Plays and Games without me,
and be welcome to 'em and enjoy 'em. We've nought
to do with one another. I'm best let alone !' "

Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her
eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked
himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her
ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then .
slowly winding one of her long tresses round and
round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she
hung about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty,

** I'm not a cross-grained man by natur', I believe ;
and easy satisfied, I'm sure. I bear no iU will against
none of 'em : I only want to live like one of the
Almighty's creeturs. I can't, I don't ; and so there 's

74 THE CHIMES.

a pit dug between me and them that can and do.
There 's others like me. You might tell 'em off by
hundreds and by thousands, sooner than by ones.''

Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook
his head to signify as much.

** I've got a bad name this way," said Fern ; ^' and
I'm not likely, I'm afeard, to get a better. 'Ta'nt
lawful to be out of sorts, and I am out of sorts, though
God knows I'd sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could.
Well ! I don't know as this Alderman could hurt me
much by sending me to gaol ; but without a friend
to speak a word for me, he might do it ; and you
see — ! " pointing downward with his finger, at the
child.

** She has a beautiful face," said Trotty.

<< Why yes ! " replied the other in a low voice, as he
gently turned it up with both his hands towards his
own, and looked upon it steadfastly. "I've thought so,
many times. I've thought so, when my hearth was
very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so
t'other night, when we were taken like two thieves.
But they — they shouldn't try the little face too

THE SECOND QUARTER. 75

often, should they, Lilian ? That's hardly fair upon
a man !"

He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her
with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert
the current of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were
living.

** I never had one," he returned, shaking his head.
" She's my brother's child : an orphan. Nine year
old, though you'd hardly think it ; but she's tired
and worn out now. They'd have taken care on her,
the Union ; eight and twenty mile away from where
we live ; between four walls (as they took care of my
old father when he couldn't work no more, though he
didn't trouble 'em long) ; but I took her instead, and
she's lived with me ever since. Her mother had a
friend once, in London here. We are trying to find
her, and to find work too ; but it's a large place.
Never mind. More room for us to walk about in,
Lilly!"

Meeting the child's eyes with a smile which melted
Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand.

** I don't so much as know your name," he said,

76 THE CHIMES.

*.' but I've opened my heart free to you, for I'm thank-
ful to you ; with good reason. I'll take your advice,
and keep clear of this — "

** Justice," suggested Toby.

" Ah !" he said. '* If that's the name they give
him. This Justice. And to-morrow will try whether
there's better fortun' to be met with, somewheres
near London. Good night. A Happy New Year !"

** Stay !" cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he
relaxed his grip. " Stay ! The New Year never
can be happy to me, if we part like this. The New
Year never can be happy to me, if I see the child and
you, go wandering away you don't know where, with-
out a shelter for your .heads. Come home with me !
I'm a poor man, living in a poor place ; but I can
give you lodging for one night and never miss it.
Come home with me ! Here ! I'll take her ! " cried
Trotty, lifting up the child. " A pretty one ! Fd
carry twenty times her weight, and never know I'd
got it. Tell me if I go too quick for you. I'm very
fast. I always was !" Trotty said this, taking about
six of his trotting paces to one stride of his fatigued

THE SECOND QUARTER. 77

companion ; and with his thin legs quivering again,
beneath the load he bore.

** Why, she's as light," said Trottj, trotting in his
speech as well as in his gait ; for he could n't bear to
be thanked, and dreaded a moment's pause ; *' as
light as a feather. Lighter than a Peacock's feather
— a great deal lighter. Here we are, and here
we go ! Round this first tiu-ning to the right, Uncle
Will, and past the pump, and sharp off up the
passage to the left, right opposite the public-house.
Here we are, and here we go. Cross over. Uncle
Will, and mind the kidney pieman at the corner !
Here we are and here we go ! Down the Mews
here. Uncle Will, and stop at the black door, with
* T. Veck, Ticket Porter ' wrote upon a board ; and
here we are and we go, and here we are indeed, my
precious Meg, surprising you !

With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set
the child down before his daughter in the middle of
the floor. The Httle visitor looked once at Meg ; and
doubting nothing in that face, but trusting every-
thing she saw there ; ran into her arms.

78 THE CHIMES.

" Here we are and here we go ! " cried Trotty,
running round the room and choking audibly. *' Here !
Uncle Will ! Here 's a fire you know ! Why don't
you come to the fire ? Oh here we are and here we
go ! Meg, my precious darling, where 's the kettle ?
Here it is and here it goes, and it '11 bile in no
time ! "

Trotty really had picked up the kettle some-
where or other in the course of his wild career, and
now put it on the fire : while Meg, seating the child
in a warm corner, knelt down on the ground before
her, and pulled off her shoes, and dried her wet feet
on a cloth. Aye, and she laughed at Trotty too — so
pleasantly, so cheerfully, that Trotty could have blessed
her where she kneeled : for he had seen that, when
they entered, she was sitting by the fire in tears.

" Why father ! " said Meg. '* You 're crazy to-
night, I think. I don't know what the Bells would
say to that. Poor little feet. How cold they
are !

*' Oh they're warmer now ! " exclaimed the child.
*' They're quite warm now ! "

THE SECOND QUARTER. 79

" No, no, no," said Meg. " We haven't rubbed
'em half enough. We 're so busy. So busy ! And
when they 're done, we '11 brush out the damp hair ;
and when that 's done, we '11 bring some colour to the
poor pale face with fresh water ; and when that 's
done we '11 be so gay, and brisk, and happy — ! "

The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round
the neck ; caressed her fair cheek with its hand ; and
said, " Oh Meg ! oh dear Meg ! "

Toby's blessing could have done no more. Who
could do more !

" Why father !" cried Meg, after a pause.
. ** Here I am, and here I go, my dear," said Trotty.
** Good Gracious me ! " cried Meg. "He's crazy !
He's put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and
hung the lid behind the door ! '*

** I didn't go to do it, my love," said Trotty,
hastily repairing this mistake. '' Meg, my dear ?"

Meg looked towards him and saw that he had
elaborately stationed himself behind the chair of their
male visitor, where with many mysterious gestures he
was holding up the sixpence he had earned.

80 THE CHIMES.

*' I see, my dear," said Trotty, " as I was coming
in, half an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the
stairs ; and I'm pretty sure there was a bit of bacon
too. As I don't remember where it was, exactly ; I'll
go myself and try to find 'em."

With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to
purchase the viands he had spoken of, for ready
money, at Mrs. Chickenstalker's ; and presently came
back, pretending that he had not been able to find
them, at first, in the dark.

"But here they are, at last," said Trotty, setting
out the tea-things, " all correct ! I was pretty sure it
was tea, and a rasher. So it is. Meg my Pet, if you'll
just make the tea, while your unworthy father toasts
the bacon, we shall be ready, immediate. It's a
curious circumstance," said Trotty, proceeding in his
cookery, with the assistance of the toasting-fork,
** curious, but well known to my friends, that I never
care, myself, for rashers, nor for tea. I like to see
other people enjoy 'em," said Trotty, speaking very
loud, to impress the fact upon his guest, ** but to
me, as food, they 're disagreeable. "

THE SECOND QUARTER. 81

Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon
— ah ! — as if he liked it ; and when he poured the
boiling water in the ted-pot, looked lovingly down
into the depths of that snug cauldron, and suffered
the fragrant steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe
his head and face in a thick cloud. However, for all
this, he neither ate nor drank except, at the very
beginning, a mere morsel for form's sake, which he
appeared to eat with infinite relish, but declared was
perfectly uninteresting to him.

No. Trotty 's occupation was, to see Will Fern and
Lilian eat and drink ; and so was Meg's. And never
did spectators at a city dinner or court banquet find
such high delight in seeing others feast : although it
were a monarch or a pope : as those two did, in
looking on that night. Meg smiled at Trotty, Trotty
laughed at Meg. Meg shook her head and made
belief to clap her hands, applauding Trotty ; Trotty
conveyed, in dumb-show, unintelligible narratives of
how and when and where he had found their visitors,
to Meg ; and they were happy. Very happy.

'^Although," thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he

82 THE CHIMES.

watched Meg's face ; ** that match is hroken off, I
see !"

** Now, I'll tell you what," said Trotty after tea.
** The little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know."

" With good Meg ! " cried the child, caressing
her. "With Meg."

" That's right," said Trotty. " And I should n't
wonder if she kiss Meg's father, won't she ? /'m
Meg's father."

Mightily delighted Trotty was, when the child went
timidly towards him ; and having kissed him, fell
back upon Meg again.

" She's as sensible as Solomon," said Trotty.
** Here we come, and here we — no, we don't — I don't
mean that — I — what was I saying, Meg, my
precious ? "

Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon
her chair, and with his face turned from her, fondled
the child's head, half hidden in her lap.

** To be sure," said Toby. ** To be sure ! I don't
know what I'm rambling on about, to-night. My
wits are wool-gathering, I think. Will Fern, you

THE SECOND QUARTER. 83

come along with me. You're tired to death, and hroken
down for want of rest. You come along with me."

The man still played with the child's curls,
still leaned upon Meg's chair, still turned away his
face. He did n't speak, but in his rough coarse fin-
gers, clenching and expanding in the fair hair of the
child, there was an eloquence that said enough.

** Yes, yes," said Trotty, answering unconsciously
what he saw expressed in his daughter's face. *' Take
her with you, Meg. Get her to-bed. There ! Now
Will, I'll show you where you lie. It's not much of a
place : only a loft : hut having a loft, I always say, is
one of the great conveniences of living in a mews ;
and tiU this coach-house and stable gets a better
let, we live here cheap. There 's plenty of sweet hay
up there, belonging to a neighbour ; and it's as clean,
as hands and Meg can make it. Cheer up ! Don't
give way. A new heart for a New Year, always ! "

The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen,
trembhng, into Trotty 's hand. So Trotty, talking
without intermission, led him out as tenderly and
easily as if he had been a child himself.
g2

84 THE CHIMES.

Returning before Meg, he listened for an instant at
tlie door of her Kttle chamber ; an adjoining room.
The child was murmm-ing a simple Prayer before lying
down to sleep ; and when she had remembered Meg's
name, ** Dearly, Dearly" — so her words ran — Trotty
heard her stop and ask for his.

It was some short time before the foolish little old
fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and
draw his chair to the warm hearth. But when he had
done so, and had trimmed the light, he took his news-
paper from his pocket, and began to read. Carelessly
at first, and skimming up and down the columns ; but
with an earnest and a sad attention, very soon.

For this same dreaded paper re-directed Trotty 's
thoughts into the channel they had taken all that
day, and which the day's events had so marked out
and shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had
set him on another course of thinking, and a happier
one, for the time ; but being alone again, and read-
ing of the crimes and violences of the people, he
relapsed into his former train.

In this mood, he came to an account (and it was not

THE SECOND QUARTER. 85

the first he had ever read) of a woman who had laid
her desperate hands not only on her own life but on that
of her young child. A crime so terrible, and so revolt-
ing to his soul, dilated with the love of Meg, that he let
the journal drop, and fell back in his chair, appalled.

" Unnatural and cruel ! " Toby cried. ** Unna-
tural and cruel ! None but people who were bad at
heart : born bad : who had no business on the earth :
could do such deeds. It 's too true, all 1 Ve heard
to-day ; too just, too full of proof. We 're Bad ! "

The Chimes took up the words so suddenly — burst
out so loud, and clear, and sonorous — that the Bells
seemed to strike him in his chair.

And what was that, they said ?

'* Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby !
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby !
Come and see us, come and see us. Drag him to us,
drag him to us, Haunt and hunt him, haunt and
hunt him. Break his slumbers, break his slumbers !
Toby Veck Toby Veck, door open wide Toby, Toby
Veck Toby Veck, door open wide Toby — " then
fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and
ringing in the very bricks and plaster on the walls.

86 THE CHIMES.

Tobj listened. Fancy, fancy ! His remorse for
having run away from them that afternoon ! No, no.
Nothing of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen
times again. ** Haunt and hunt him, haunt and
hunt him, Drag him to us, drag him to us ! " Deaf-
ening the whole town !

"Meg," said Trotty softly: tapping at her door.
*' Do you hear anything ? "

'* I hear the Bells, father. Surely they Ve very
loud to-night."

*' Is she asleep," said Toby, making an excuse for
peeping in.

" So peacefully and happily ! I can't leave her
yet though, father. Look how she holds my hand ! "
* ' Meg ! ' ' whispered Trotty. * * Listen to the Bells ! ' '
She listened, with her face towards him all the
time. But it underwent no change. She didn't un-
derstand them.

Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and
once more listened by himself. He remained here a
little time.

It was impossible to bear it ; their energy was
dreadful.

THE SECOND QUARTER. 8?

** If the tower-door is really open," said Toby,
hastily laying aside his apron, but never thinking of
his hat, ** what's to hinder me from going up into
the steeple and satisfying myself ? If it 's shut, I
don't want any other satisfaction. That's enough."

He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into
the street that he should find it shut and locked, for
he knew the door well, and had so rarely seen it
open, that he couldn't reckon above three times in
aU. It was a low arched portal, outside the chm*ch,
in a dark nook behind a column ; and had such great
iron hinges and such a monstrous lock, that there
was more hinge and lock than door.

But what was his astonishment when, coming bare-
headed to the church ; and putting his hand into this
dark nook, with a certain misgiving that it might be
unexpectedly seized, and a shivering propensity to
draw it back again ; he found that the door, which
opened outwards, actually stood ajar !

He thought, on the first surprise, of going back ;
or of getting a light, or a companion ; but his courage
aided him immediately ; and he determined to ascend
alone.

** What have I
to fear ?" said Trottj.
** It's a church ! Be-
sides, the ringers may
be there, and have
forgotten to shut the
door."

So he went in;
feeling his way as he
went, like a blind

THE SECOND QUARTER. 89

man ; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for the
Chimes were silent.

The dust from the street had blown into the recess ;
and lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and
velvet-like to the foot, that there was something start-
ling even in that. The narrow stair was so close to
the door, too, that he stumbled at the very first ; and
shutting the door upon himself, by striking it with his
foot, and causing it to rebound back heavily, he
could n't open it again.

This was another reason, however, for going on.
Trotty groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up,
and round and round ; and up, up, up ; higher, higher,
higher up !

It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping
work ; so low and narrow, that his groping hand was
always touching something ; and it often felt so like
a man or ghostly figure standing up erect and making
room for him to pass without discovery, that he
would rub the smooth wall upward searching for its
face, and downward searching for its feet, while a
chill tingling crept all over him. Twice or thrice a

90 THE CHIMES.

door or niche broke the monotonous surface ; and
then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church ;
and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and going to
tumble headlong down ; until he found the wall again.
Still up, up, up ; and round and round ; and up,
up, up ; higher, higher, higher up !

At length, the dull and stifling atmosphere began
to freshen : presently to feel quite windy : presently
it blew so strong, that he could hardly keep his legs.
But he got to an arched window in the tower, breast-
high, and holding tight, looked down upon the house-
tops, on the smoking chimneys, on the blurr and
blotch of lights (towards the place where Meg was
wondering where he was and calling to him perhaps),
all kneaded up together in a leaven of mist and
darkness.

This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He
had caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which
hung down through apertures in the oaken roof.
At first he started ; thinking it was hair ; then trembled
at the very thought of waking the deep Bell. The
Bells themselves were higher. Higher, Trotty, in his

THE SECOND QUARTER. 91

fascination, or in working out the spell upon him,
groped his way. By ladders now, and toilsomely,
for it was steep, and not too certain holding for the
feet.

Up, up, up ; and climb and clamber ; up, up, up ;
higher, higher, higher up !

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with
his head just raised above its beams, he came among
the Bells. It was barely possible to make out their
great shapes in the gloom ; but there they were.
Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell in-
stantly upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of
stone and metal. His head went round and round.
He Hstened, and then raised a wild ** Halloa ! "

Halloa ! was mournfully protracted by the echoes.

Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened,
Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a
swoon.

THE THIRD QUARTER. 93

first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters
uncouth and wild, arise in premature, imperfect resur-
rection ; the several parts and shapes of different
things are joined and mixed hy chance ; and when,
and how, and by what wonderful degrees, each sepa-
rates from each, and every sense and object of the
mind resumes its usual form and lives again, no man
— though every man is every day the casket of this
type of the Great Mystery — can tell.

So ; when and how the darkness of the night-black
steeple changed to shining light ; when and how the
solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures ; when
and how the whispered '* Haunt and hunt him,"
breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon,
became a voice exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty,
*' Break his slumbers ; " when and how he ceased
to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things
were, companioning a host of others that were not ;
there are no dates or means to tell. But : awake,
and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had
lately lain : he saw this Goblin Sight.

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps
had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms,

94 THE CHIMES,

spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them
leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells with-
out a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground ;
above him, in the air ; clambering from him, by the ropes
below ; looking down upon him, from the massive iron-
girded beams ; peeping in upon him, through the chinks
and loopholes in the walls ; spreading away and away
from him in enlarging circles, as the water-ripples
give place to a huge stone that suddenly comes plash-
ing in among them. He saw them, of all aspects and
all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled,
exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw
them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he
saw them merry, he saw them grim ; he saw them
dance, and heard them sing ; he saw them tear their
hair, and, heard them howl. He saw the air thick
with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly.
He saw them riding downward, soaring upward, sail-
ing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all
violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and
tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw
them in the houses, busy at the sleepers' beds. He
saw them soothing people in their dreams ; he saw

THE THIRD QUARTER. 95

them beating them with knotted whips ; he saw them
yelling in their ears ; he saw them playing softest
music on their pillows ; he saw them cheering some
with the songs of birds and the perfume of flowers ; he
saw them flashing awful faces on the troubled rest of
others, from enchanted mirrors which they carried in
their hands.

He saw these creatiu-es, not only among sleeping
men but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcileable
with one another, and possessing or assuming natures
the most opposite. He saw one buckling on innu-
merable wings to increase his speed ; another loading
himself with chains and weights to retard his. He
saw some putting the hands of clocks forward, some
putting the hands of clocks backward, some endea-
vouring to stop the clock entirely. He saw them
representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a
funeral ; in this chamber an election, and in that
a ball ; everywhere, restless and untiring motion.

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary
figures, as well as by the uproar of the Bells, which
all this while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden

96 THE CHIMES.

pillar for support, and turned his white face here and
there, in mute and stunned astonishment.

As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous
change ! The whole swarm fainted ; their forms
collapsed, their speed deserted them ; they sought to
fly, hut in the act of falling died and melted into air.
No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler
leaped down pretty hriskly from the surface of the
Great Bell, and alighted on his feet, hut he was dead
and gone hefore he could turn round. Some few of
the late company who had gamholled in the tower,
remained there, spinning over and over a little longer ;
but these became at every turn more faint, and few,
and feeble, and soon went the way of the rest. The
last of all was one small hunchback, who had got into
an echoing corner, where he twirled and twirled, and
floated by himself a long time ; showing such perse-
verance, that at last he dwindled to a leg and even to
a foot, before he finally retired ; but he vanished in
the end, and then the tower was silent.

Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a
bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell

THE THIRD QUARTER. 97

- — incompreliensibly, a figure and tlie Bell itself.
Gigantic, grave, and darkly watchful of him, as he
stood rooted to the ground.

Mysterious and awful figures ! Resting on nothing ;
poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped
and hooded heads merged in the dim roof ; motion-
less and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he
saw them by some light belonging to themselves —
none else was there — each with its muffled hand upon
its goblin mouth.

He coiold not plunge down wildly through the open-
ing in the floor, for all power of motion had deserted
him. Otherwise he would have done so — aye, would
have thrown himself, head-foremost, from the steeple-
top, rather than have seen them watching him with
eyes that would have waked and watched although the
pupils had been taken out.

Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonehi
place, and of the wild and fearful night that reigned
there, touched him like a spectral hand. His distance
from all help ; the long, dark, winding, ghost-be-
leaguered way that lay between him and the earth on

98 THE CHIMES.

which men lived ; his being high, high, high, up
there, where it had made him dizzy to see the birds
fly in the day ; cut off from all good people, who at
such an hour were safe at home and sleeping in their
beds ; all this struck coldly through him, not as a
reflection but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes
and thoughts and fears, were fixed upon the watchful
figures; which, rendered unlike any figures of this
world by the deep gloom and shade enwrapping and
enfolding them, as well as by their looks and forms
and supernatural hovering above the floor, were never-
theless as plainly to be seen as were the stalwart
oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up
there to support the Bells. These hemmed them, in
a very forest of hewn timber ; from the entanglements,
intricacies, and depths of which, as from among
the boughs of a dead wood bhghted for their
Phantom use, they kept their darksome and unwink-
ing watch.

A blast of air — how cold and shrill ! — came moan-
ing through the tower. As it died away, the Great
Bell, or the Goblin of the Great Bell, spoke.

THE THIRD QUARTER. 99

** What visitor is this ! '' it said. The voice was
low and deep, and Trottj fancied that it sounded in
the other figures as well.

*' I thought my name was called by the Chimes ! "
said Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of sup-
pHcation. ** I hardly know why I am here, or how
I came. I have listened to the Chimes these many
years. They have cheered me often."

** And you have thanked them ? " said the Bell.

** A thousand times ! " cried Trotty.

- How ? ''

" I am a poor man," faltered Trotty, *' and could
only thank them in words. ' '

" And always so ? " inquired the Goblin of
the Bell. ** Have you never done us wrong in
words ?'*

** No ! " cried Trotty eagerly.

** Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong,
in words ? " pursued the Goblin of the Bell.

Trotty was about to answer, ** Never ! " But he
stopped, and was confused.

" The voice of Time," said the Phantom, *' cries
H 2

100 THE CHIMES.

to man, Advance ! Time is for Ms advancement and
improvement ; for his greater worth, his greater hap-
piness, his hotter Hfe ; his progress onward to that
goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there,
in the period when Time and He hegan. Ages of
darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and
gone : millions uncountahle, have suffered, lived, and
died : to point the way Before him. Who seeks to turn
him hack, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty
engine which will strike the meddler dead ; and he
the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary
check ! "

"I never did so, to my knowledge. Sir," said
Trotty. '* It was quite hy accident if I did. I
wouldn't go to do it, I 'm sure."

" Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its
servants," said the Gohhn of the Bell, ** a cry of
lamentation for days which have had their trial and
their failure, and have left deep traces of it which
the blind may see — a cry that only serves the Present
Time, by showing men how much it needs their help
when any ears can listen to regrets for such a Past —

THE THIRD QUARTER. 101

wlio does this, does a wrong. And you have done
that wrong to us, the Chimes."

Trotty's first excess of fear was gone. But he had
felt tenderly and gratefully towards the Bells, as you
have seen ; and when he heard himself arraigned as
one who had offended them so weightily, his heart
was touched with penitence and grief.

"If you knew," said Trotty, clasping his hands
earnestly — " or perhaps you do know — if you know
how often you have kept me company; how often
you have cheered me up when I We heen low ;
how you were quite the plaything of my little
daughter Meg (almost the only one she ever had)
when first her mother died, and she and me were
left alone — you won't hear malice for a hasty
word ! "

** Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeak-
ing disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or
pain, or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng ; who
hears us make response to any creed that gauges
human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount
of miserable food on which humanity may pine and

102 THE CHIMES.

wither ; does us wrong. That wrong jou have done
us ! '' said the Bell.

*' I have ! '' said Trotty. ** Oh forgive me ! '*

'' Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth :
the Putters Down of crushed and hroken natures,
fonned to be raised up higher than such maggots of
the time can crawl or can conceive " pursued the
Goblin of the Bell : ** who does so, does us wrong.
And you have done us wrong ! "

'*Not meaning it," said Trotty. "In my igno-
rance. Not meaning it ! "

'* Lastly, and most of all," pursued the Bell.
'' Who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured
of his kind ; abandons them as Vile ; and does not
trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced preci-
pice by which they fell from Good — grasping in their
fall some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and
clinging to them still when bruised and dying in the
gulf below ; does wrong to Heaven and Man, to Time
and to Eternity. And you have done that wrong !"

** Spare me," cried Trotty falHng on his knees ;
*' for Mercy's sake ! "

THE THIRD QUARTER. 103

** Listen!" said the Shadow.

** Listen !" cried the other Shadows.

** Listen !" said a clear and child-like voice, which
Trottj thought he recognised as having heard before.

The organ sounded faintly in the church below.
Swelhng by degrees, the melody ascended to the
roof, and filled the choir and nave. Expanding more
and more, it rose up, up ; up, up ; higher, higher,
higher up ; awakening agitated hearts within the
burly piles of oak, the hollow bells, the iron-bound
doors, the stairs of solid stone ; until the tower walls
were insufficient to contain it, and it soared into the
sky.

No wonder that an old man's breast could not con-
tain a sound so vast and mighty. It broke from that
weak prison in a rush of tears ; and Trotty put his
hands before his face.

" Listen !" said the Shadow.

** Listen !" said the other Shadows.

** Listen !" said the child's voice.

A solemn strain of blended voices, rose into the
tower.

104 THE CHIMES.

It was a very low and mournful strain : a Dirge :
and as he listened, Trottj heard his child among the
singers.

'' She is Dead !" exclaimed the old man. " Meg
is dead ! Her Spirit calls to me. I hear it !"

** The Spirit of your child hewails the dead, and
mingles with the dead — dead hopes, dead fancies,
dead imaginings of youth," returned the Bell, ''hut
she is living. Learn from her life, a living truth.
Learn from the creature dearest to your heart, how
had the Bad are horn. See every hud and leaf plucked
one hy one from off the fairest stem, and know how
hare and wretched it may he. Follow her ! To Despe-
ration!"

Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right
arm forth, and pointed downward.

*' The Spirit of the Chimes is your compa-
nion," said the figure. " Go ! It stands behind
you!"

Trotty turned, and saw — the child ? The child Will
Fern had carried in the street ; the child whom
Meg had watched, hut now, asleep !

THE THIRD QUARTER. 105

** I carried her myself, to-niglit/' said Trotty. " In
these arms !"

" Show him what he calls himself," said the dark
figm'es, one and all.

The tower opened at his feet. He looked down,
and heheld his own form, lying at the hottom,
on the outside : crushed and motionless.

" No more a living man ! " cried Trotty. " Dead ! "

" Dead !" said the figures all together.

** Gracious Heaven ! And the New Year — "

** Past," said the figures.

"What!" he cried, shuddering. ** I missed my
way, and coming on the outside of this tower in the
dark, fell down — a year ago ?"

" Nine years ago !" repUed the figures.

As they gave the answer, they recalled their out-
stretched hands ; and where their figures had been,
there the Bells were.

And they rung ; their time being come again.
And once again, vast multitudes of phantoms sprung
into existence ; once again, were incoherently en-
gaged, as they had been before ; once again, faded

106 THE CHIMES.

on the stopping of the Chimes ; and dwindled into
nothing.

** What are these ?" he asked his guide. " If I
am not mad, what are these ?"

" Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the
air," returned the child. *' They take such shapes
and occupations as the hopes and thoughts of
mortals, and the recollections they have stored up,
give them."

** And you," said Trotty wildly. ** What are
you ?"

" Hush, hush !" returned the child. " Look
here !"

In a poor, mean room ; working at the same kind of
emhroidery which he had often, often, seen before her ;
Meg, his own dear daughter, was presented to his
view. He made no effort to imprint his kisses on her
face ; he did not strive to clasp her to his loving
heart ; he knew that such endearments were for him
no more. But he held his trembling breath; and
brushed away the bhnding tears, that he might look
upon her ; that he might only see her.

THE THIRD QUARTER. 107

Ah ! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear
eye, how dimmed. The bloom, how faded from the
cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had ever been,
but Hope, Hope, Hope, oh where was the fresh Hope
that had spoken to him like a voice !

She looked up from her work, at a companion.
Following her eyes, the old man started back.

In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance.
In the long silken hair, he saw the self-same curls ;
around the lips, the child's expression lingering still.
See ! In the eyes, now turned inquiringly on Meg,
there shone the very look that scanned those features
when he brought her home !

Then what was this, beside him !

Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something
reigning there : a lofty something, undefined and
indistinct, which made it hardly more than a remem-
brance of that child — as yonder figure might be — yet
it was the same : the same : and wore the dress.

Hark. They were speaking !

** Meg," said Lilian, hesitating. ** How often you
raise your head from your work to look at me ! "

108 THE CHIMES.

** Are my looks so altered, tliat they frighten you ? "
asked Meg.

" Nay dear ! But you smile at that, yourself ! Why
not smile, when you look at me, Meg ? "

*' I do so. Do I not ? " she answered : smiling on
her.

"Now you do," said Lilian, **hut not usually.
When you think I'm busy, and don't see you, you
look so anxious and so doubtful, that I hardly like to
raise my eyes. There is little cause for smiling in
this hard and toilsome life, but you were once so
cheerful."

" Am I not now ! " cried Meg, speaking in a tone
of strange alarm, and rising to embrace her. " Do /
make our weary life more weary to you, Lilian !

'* You have been the only thing that made it life,"
said Lilian, fervently kissing her ; *' sometimes the
only thing that made me care to live so, Meg. Such
work, such work ! So many hours, so many days, so
many long, long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never-
ending work — not to heap up riches, not to live grandly
or gaily, not to live upon enough, however coarse ; but

THE THIRD QUARTER. 109

to earn bare bread ; to scrape together just enough
to toil upon, and want upon, and keep alive in us the
consciousness of our hard fate ! Oh Meg, Meg ! " she
raised her voice and twined her arms about her as
she spoke, like one in pain. '* How can the cruel world
go round, and bear to look upon such lives ! "

** Lilly !" said Meg, soothing her, and putting back
her hair from her wet face. ** Why Lilly ! You ! So
pretty and so young ! ' '

'* Oh Meg !" she interrupted, holding her at arm's-
length, and looking in her face imploringly. " The
worst of all, the worst of all ! Strike me old, Meg !
Wither me and shrivel me, and free me from the
dreadful thoughts that tempt me in my youth !"

Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But the
Spirit of the child had taken flight. Was gone.

Neither did he himself remain in the same place ;
for Sir Joseph Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor,
held a great festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the
natal day of Lady Bowley ; and as Lady Bowley had
been born on New Year's day (which the local news-
papers considered an especial pointing of the finger of

110 THE CHIMES.

Providence to number One, as Lady Bowie j's destined
figure in Creation), it was on a New Year's Day that
this festivity took place.

Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced
gentleman was there, Mr. Filer was there, the great
Alderman Cute was there — Alderman Cute had a
sympathetic feeling with great people, and had con-
siderably improved his acquaintance with Sir Joseph
Bowley on the strength of his attentive letter : indeed
had become quite a friend of the family since then —
and many guests were there. Trotty 's ghost was there,
wandering about, pojor phantom, drearily ; and looking
for its guide.

There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall.
At which Sir Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated cha-
racter of Friend and Father of the Poor, was to make
his great speech. Certain plum puddings were to be
eaten by his Friends and Children in another Hall
first ; and at a given signal. Friends and Children
flocking in among their Friends and Fathers, were to
form a family assemblage, with not one manly eye
therein unmoistened by emotion.

THE THIRD QUARTER. Ill

But there was more than this to happen. Even
more than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and
Member of Parliament, was to play a match at skittles
— real skittles — with his tenants.

** Which quite reminds one," said Alderman Cute,
" of the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff
King Hal. Ah. Fine character ! "

** Very," said Mr. Filer, dryly. " For marrying
women and murdering 'em. Considerably more than
the average number of wives by the bye."

** You '11 marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder
'em, eh ?" said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley,
aged twelve. " Sweet boy ! We shall have this little
gentleman in Parliament now," said the Alderman,
holding him by the shoulders, and looking as reflective
as he could, " before we know where we are. We
shall hear of his successes at the poll ; his speeches in
the house ; his overtures from Governments ; his bril-
liant achievements of all kinds ; ah ! we shall make
our little orations about him in the common council, I '11
be bound ; before we have time to look about us !"

'* Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!"

112 THE CHIMES.

Trotty thought. But his heart yearned towards the
child, for the love of those same shoeless and stocking-
less boys, predestined (by the Alderman) to turn out
bad, who might have been the children of poor Meg.
** Richard," moaned Trotty, roaming among the
company, to and fro; *' where is he ? I can't find
Richard ! Where is Richard ? ' '

Not likely to be there, if still alive ! But Trotty 's
grief and solitude confused him ; and he still went
wandering among the gallant company ; looking for
his guide, and saying, ** Where is Richard ? Show
me Richard !"

He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr.
Fish, the confidential Secretary : in great agitation.

"Bless my heart and soul!" cried Mr. Fish.
'* Where's Alderman Cute ? Has anybody seen the
Alderman ? "

Seen the Alderman ? Oh dear ! Who could ever
help seeing the Alderman ? He was so considerate,
so afikble ; he bore so much in mind the natural
desire of folks to see him ; that if he had a fault, it
was the being constantly On View. And wherever

THE THIRD QUARTER. 113

the great people were, there, to be sure, attracted by
the kindred sympathy between great souls, was Cute.

Several voices cried that he was in the circle round
Sir Joseph. Mr. Fish made way there ; found him ;
and took him secretly into a window near at hand.
Trotty joined them. Not of his own accord. He
felt that his steps were led in that direction.

*' My dear Alderman Cute," said Mr. Fish. ** A
little more this way. The most dreadful circumstance
has occurred. I have this moment received the intel-
ligence. I think it will be best not to acquaint Sir
Joseph with it till the day is over. You understand
Sir Joseph, and will give me your opinion. The
most frightful and deplorable event !"

** Fish !" returned the Alderman. *' Fish ! My
good fellow, what is the matter ? Nothing revolu-
tionary, I hope ! No — no attempted interference
with the magistrates ? "

*' Deedles, the banker," gasped the Secretary.
*' Deedles, Brothers — who was to have been here
to-day — high in office in the Goldsmiths' Company — "

^''Not stopped!" exclaimed the Alderman. *'It
can't be ! "

114 THE CHIMES.

'* Shot himself."

^* Good God ! ''

'* Put a douhle-harrelled pistol to his mouth, in his
own counting-house," said Mr. Fish, **and blew his
brains out. No motive. Princely circumstances ! "

'* Circumstances ! " exclaimed the Alderman. '* A
man of noble fortune. One of the most respectable
of men. Suicide, Mr. Fish ! By his own hand ! "

" This very morning," returned Mr. Fish.

" Oh the brain, the brain ! " exclaimed the pious
Alderman, Hfting up his hands. " Oh the nerves, the
nerves ; the mysteries of this machine called Man !
Oh the little that unhinges it : poor creatures that
we are ! Perhaps a dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the
conduct of his son, who, I have heard, ran very wild,
and was in the habit of drawing bills upon him with-
out the least authority ! A most respectable man.
One of the most respectable men I ever knew ! A
lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A public calamity !
I shall make a point of wearing the deepest mourning.
A most respectable man ! But there is One above.
We must submit, Mr. Fish. We must submit ! ''

THE THIRD QUARTER. 115

What, Alderman ! No word of Putting Down ?
Remember, Justice, your high moral boast and pride.
Come, Alderman ! Balance those scales. Throw
me into this, the empty one, No Dinner, and Nature's
Founts in some poor woman, dried by starving misery
and rendered obdurate to claims for which her off-
spring has authority in holy mother Eve. Weigh me
the two : you Daniel going to judgment, when your
day shall come ! Weigh them, in the eyes of suffer-
ing thousands, audience (not unmindful) of the grim
f^rce you play ! Or supposing that you strayed from
your ^^e wits — it's not so far to go, but that it might
be — and laid hands upon that throat of yours, warn-
ing your fellows (if you have a fellow) how they croak
their comfortable wickedness to raving heads and
stricken hearts. What then ?

The words rose up in Trotty's breast, as if they
had been spoken by some other voice within him.
Alderman Cute pledged himself to Mr. Fish that he
would assist him in breaking the melancholy cata-
strophe to Sir Joseph, when the day was over. Then,
before they parted, wringing Mr. Fish's hand in
2

IIG THE CHIMES.

bitterness of soul, he said, " The most respectable of
men ! " And added that he hardly knew : not even he :
why such afflictions were allowed on earth.

"It's almost enough to make one think, if one
didn't know better," said Alderman Cute, "that at
times some motion of a capsizing nature was going on
in things, which affected the general economy of the
social fabric. Deedles Brothers ! "

The skittle-playing came off with immense success.
Sir Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully ;
Master Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance
also ; and everybody said that now, when a Baronet and
the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the country
was coming round again, as fast as it could come.

At its proper time, the Banquet was served up.
Trotty involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the
rest, for he felt himself conducted thither by some
stronger impulse than his own free will. The sight
was gay in the extreme ; the ladies were very hand-
some ; the visitors delighted, cheerful, and good-
tempered. When the lower doors were opened, and
the people flocked in, in their rustic dresses, the

THE THIRD QUARTER. 117

beauty of the spectacle was at its height ; but
Trotty only murmured more and more, " Where is
Richard ! He should help and comfort her ! I can't
see Richard ! "

There had been some speeches made ; and Lady Bow-
ley 's health had been proposed ; and Sir Joseph Bowley
had returned thanks ; and had made his great speech,
showing by various pieces of evidence that he was the
born Friend and Father, and so forth ; and had given
as a Toast, his Friends and Children, and the Dignity
of Labor ; when a slight disturbance at the bottom of
the hall attracted Toby's notice. After some confu-
sion, noise, and opposition, one man broke through the
rest, and stood forward by himself.

Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought
of, and had looked for, many times. In a scantier
supply of light, he might have doubted the identity of
that worn man, so old, and grey, and bent ; but with
a blaze of lamps upon his gnarled and knotted head,
he knew Will Fern as soon as he stepped forth.

** What is this ! " exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising.
** Who ojave this man admittance ? This is a criminal

118 THE CHIMES.

from prison ! Mr. Fish, Sir, will you have the good-
ness— ' '*

'' A minute ! " said Will Fern. " A minute ! My
Lady, you was born on this day along with a New
Year. Get me a minute's leave to speak."

She made some intercession for him, and Sir Joseph
took his seat again, with native dignity.

The ragged visitor — for he was miserably dressed
— looked round upon the company, and made his
homage to them with a humble bow.

*' Gentlefolks ! " he said. ** You've drunk the
Labourer. Look at me ! "

*' Just come from jail," said Mr. Fish.
' *' Just come from jail," said Will. *' And neither
for the first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor
yet the fourth."

Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four
times was over the average ; and he ought to be
ashamed of himself.

** Gentlefolks ! " repeated Will Fern. " Look at
me ! You see I'm at the worst. Beyond all hurt or
harm ; beyond your help ; for the time when your

THE THIRD QUARTER. 119

kind words or kind actions could have done me good,"
— he struck his hand upon his hreast, and shook his
head, " is gone, with the scent of last year's beans or
clover on the air. Let me say a word for these,"
pointing to the labouring people in the hall ; ** and,
when you 're met together, hear the real Truth spoke
out for once."

'* There's not a man here," said the host, *'who
would have him for a spokesman."

*' Like enough. Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the
less true, perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that 's a
proof on it. Gentlefolks, I 've lived many a year in
this place. You may see the cottage from the sunk
fence over yonder. I 've seen the ladies draw it in*
their books a hundred times. It looks well in a
picter, I 've heerd say ; but there an't weather in
picters, and maybe 'tis fitter for that, than for a
place to live in. Well! I lived there. How hard —
how bitter hard, I lived there, I won't say. Any
day in the year, and every day, you can judge for
your own selves."

He spoke as he had spoken on the night when

120

THE CHIMES.

Trottj found him in the

street. His voice was deeper

and more husky, and had

a tremhhng in it now and

then ; hut he never raised

it, passionately, and seldom

lifted it ahove the firm stern

level of the homely facts

he stated.

.' *' 'Tis harder than you

think for, gentlefolks, to grow up decent : commonly

decent : in such a place. That I growed up a man and

THE THIRD QUARTER. 121

not a brute, says something for me — as I was then.
As I am now, there's nothing can be said for me or
done for me. I 'm past it."

**I am glad this man has entered," observed Sir
Joseph, looking round serenely. " Don't disturb
him. It appears to be Ordained. He is an Example :
a living example. I hope and trust, and confidently
expect, that it will not be lost upon my Friends
here."

"I dragged on," said Fern, after a moment's silence.
** Somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows
how ; but so heavy, that I could n't put a cheerful face
upon it, or make believe that I was anything but what
I was. Now, gentlemen — you gentlemen that sits at
Sessions — when you see a man with discontent writ on
his face, you says to one another, * he 's suspicious.
I has my doubts,' says you, * about Will Fern. Watch
that fellow ! ' I don 't say, gentlemen, it ain't quite
nat'ral, but I say 'tis so ; and from that hour, what-
ever Will Fern does, or lets alone — all one — it goes
against him."

Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat-

122 THE CHIMES.

pockets, and leaning back in his chair, and smiling,
winked at a neighbouring chandelier. As much as to
say, *' Of course ! I told you so. The common cry !
Lord bless you, we are up to all this sort of thing —
myself and human nature."

" Now, gentlemen," said Will Fern, holding out
his hands, and flushing for an instant in his haggard
face. ** See how your laws are made to trap and hunt
us when we 're brought to this. I tries to live else-
where. And I 'm a vagabond. To jail with him !
1 ccJmes back here. I goes a nutting in your woods,
and breaks — who don't ? — a limber branch or two.
To jail with him ! One of your keepers sees me
in the broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a
gun. To jail with him ! I has a nat'ral angry word
with that man, when I 'm free again. To jail with
him ! I cuts a stick. To jail with him ! I eats a
rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with him ! It's
twenty mile away ; and coming back, I begs a trifle
on the road. To jail with him ! At last, the con-
stable, the keeper — anybody — finds me anywhere, a
doing anything. To jail with him, for he 's a vagrant,

THE THIRD QUARTER. 123

and a jail-bird known ; and jail 's the only home
he 's got."

The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should
say, " A very good home too !

" Do I say this to serve my cause ! " cried Fern.
''Who can give me back my liberty, who can give
me back my good name, who can give me back my
innocent niece ? Not all the Lords and Ladies in
wide England. But gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing
with other men like me, begin at the right end.
Give us, in mercy, better homes when we 're a lying
in our cradles ; give us better food when we 're a
working for our lives ; give us kinder laws to bring
us back when we 're a going wrong ; and don't set
Jail, Jail, Jail, afore us, everywhere we turn. There
an't a condescension you can show the Labourer
then, that he won't take, as ready and as grateful
as a man can be ; for he has a patient, peaceful,
willing heart. But you must put his rightful spirit
in him first ; for whether he's a wreck and ruin
such as me, or is like one of them that stand here
now, his spirit is divided from you at this time.

124 THE CHIMES.

Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it back ! Bring it
back, afore the day comes when even his Bible changes
in his altered mind, and the words seem to him to
read, as they have sometimes read in my own eyes —
in Jail : ' Whither thou goest, I can Not go ; where
thou lodgest, I do Not lodge ; thy people are Not my
people ; Nor thy God my God ! ' "

A sudden stir and agitation took place in the Hall.
Trotty thought at first, that several had risen to eject
the man ; and hence this change in its appearance.
But another moment showed him that the room and
all the company had vanished from his sight, and that
his daughter was again before him, seated at her
work. But in a poorer, meaner garret than before :
and with no Lilian by her side.

The frame at which she had worked, was put
away upon a shelf and covered up. The chair in
which she had sat, was turned against the wall.
A history was written in these little things, and
in Meg's grief- worn face. Oh ! who could fail to
read it !

Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was

126 THE CHIMES.

looking down upon her ; loving lier — how dearly loving
her ! — and talking to her in a tender voice ahout the
old times, and the Bells. Though he knew, poor
Trotty, though he knew she could not hear him.

A great part of the evening had worn away, when
a knock came at her door. She opened it. A man
was on the threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken
sloven : wasted by intemperance and vice : and with
his matted hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder :
but with some traces on him, too, of having been a
man of good proportion and good features in his youth.

He stopped until he had her leave to enter ;
and she, retiring a pace or two from the open door,
silently and sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had
his wish. He saw Richard.

'' May I come in, Margaret ?"

*' Yes ! Come in. Come in ! "

It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke ;
for with any doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh
discordant voice would have persuaded him that it was
not Richard but some other man.

There were but two chairs in the room. She gave

THE THIRD QUARTER. 127

him hers, and stood at some short distance from him,
waiting to hear what he had to say.

He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor ;
with a lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of
such deep degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of
such a miserable downfall, that she put her hands be-
fore her face and turned away, lest he should see how
much it moved her.

Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such
trifling sound, he hfted his head, and began to speak
as if there had been no pause since he entered.
** StiU at work, Margaret ? You work late."
" I generally do.'*
" And early ? "
** And early."

** So she said. She said you never tired ; or never
owned that you tired. Not all the time you lived to-
gether. Not even when you fainted, between work and
fasting. But I told you that, the last time I came."
** You did," she answered. " And I implored you
to tell me nothing more ; and you made me a solemn
promise, Richard, that you never would."

128 THE CHIMES.

*^ A solemn promise,'* he repeated, with a drivelling
laugh and vacant stare. " A solemn promise. To be
sure. A solemn promise !" Awakening, as it were,
after a time ; in the same manner as before ; he said
with sudden animation,

*' How can I help it, Margaret ? WTiat am I to do ?
She has been to me again ! ' '

'* Again ! '* cried Meg, clasping her hands. ^* Oh,
does she think of me so often ! Has she been again ! ' '

" Twenty times again, " said Richard. *' Margaret,
she haunts me. She comes behind me in the street,
and thrusts it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the
ashes when I'm at my work (ha, ha ! that an't often),
and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my
ear, saying, ' Richard, don't look round. For hea-
ven's love, give her this!' She brings it where I
live ; she sends it in letters ; she taps at the window
and lays it on the sill. What can I do ? Look at it ! "

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked '
the money it enclosed.

" Hide it," said Meg. *' Hide it ! When she comes
again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul.

THE THIRD QUARTER. 129

That I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and
pray for her. That in my solitary work, I never
cease to have her in my thoughts. That she is with
me, night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would
remember her with my last breath. But that I can-
not look upon it !'*

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the
purse together, said with a kind of drowsy thought-
fulness :

*' I told her so. I told her so, as plain as words
could speak. I've taken this gift back and left it at
her door, a dozen times since then. But when she
came -at last, and stood before me, face to face, what
could I do?"

" You saw her ! " exclaimed Meg. '* You saw her !
Oh, Lihan, my sweet girl ! Oh, LiHan, LiHan !"

**I saw her," he went on to say, not answering,
but engaged in the same slow pursuit of his own
thoughts. *' There she stood : trembling ! * How
does she look, Richard ? Does she ever speak of me ?
Is she thinner ? My old place at the table : what's
in my old place ? And the frame she taught me our

130 THE Chimes.

old work on — has she burnt it, Richard ! ' There she
was. I heard her say it."

Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears stream-
ing from her eyes, bent over him to listen. Not to lose
a breath.

With his arms resting on his knees ; and stooping
forward in his chair, as if what he said were written
on the ground in some half legible character, which
it was his occupation to decipher and connect ; he
went on.

'' ' Richard, I have fallen very low ; and you may
guess how much I have suffered in having this sent
back, when I can bear to bring it in my hand to
you. But you loved her once, even in my memory,
dearly. Others stepped in between you ; fears, and
jealousies, and doubts, and vanities, estranged you
from her ; but you did love her, even in my memory ! '
I suppose I did," he said, interrupting himself for
a moment. ** I did ! That's neither here nor there.
' Oh Richard, if you ever did ; if you have any
memory for what is gone and lost, take it to her once
more. Once more ! Tell her how I begged and prayed.

THE THIRD QUARTER. 131

Tell her how I laid mj head upon your shoulder, where
her own head might have lain, and was so humhle to
you, Richard. Tell her that you looked into my face,
and saw the heauty which she used to praise, all
gone : all gone : and in its place, a poor, wan, hollow
cheek, that she would weep to see. Tell her every-
thing, and take it hack, and she will not refuse again.
She will not have the heart ! ' "

So he sat musing, and repeating the last words,
until he woke again, and rose.

'* You won't take it, Margaret ?"

She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to
him to leave her.

** Good night, Margaret.'*

" Good night ! "

He turned to look upon her ; struck by her sorrow,
and perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in
her voice. It was a quick and rapid action ; and for
the moment some flash of his old bearing kindled in
his form. In the next he went as he had come. Nor
did this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him
to a quicker sense of his debasement.
k2

132 THE CHIMES.

In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the
mind or body, Meg's work must be done. She sat
down to her task, and plied it. Night, midnight.
Still she worked.

She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold ;
and rose at intervals to mend it. The Chimes rang
half-past twelve while she was thus engaged ; and
when they ceased she heard a gentle knocking at the
door. Before she could so much as wonder who was
there, at that unusual hour, it opened.

Oh Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look
at this ! Oh Youth and Beauty, blest and blessing
all within your reach, and working out the ends of
your Beneficent Creator, look at this !

She saw the entering figure ; screamed its name ;
cried " LiHan !"

It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her :
clinging to her dress.

"• Up, dear ! Up ! Lilian ! My own dearest !"

** Never more, Meg ; never more ! Here ! Here !
Close to you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath
upon my face !"

THE THIRD QUARTER. 133

*' Sweet Lilian ! Darling Lilian ! Child of my
heart — no mother's love can be more tender — lay
your head upon my hreast ! "

** Never more, Meg. Never more ! When I first
looked into your face, you knelt before me. On my
knees before you, let me die. Let it be here ! "

" You have come back. My Treasure ! We will
live together, work together, hope together, die
together ! "

'* Ah ! Kiss my lips, Meg ; fold your arms about
me ; press me to your bosom ; look kindly on me ;
but don't raise me. Let it be here. Let me see the
last of your dear face upon my knees ! ' '

Oh Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be,
look at this ! Oh Youth and Beauty, working out the
ends of your Beneficent Creator, look at this !

** Forgive me, Meg ! So dear, so dear ! Forgive
me ! I know you do, I see you do, but say so Meg ! "

She said so, with her lips on Lilian's cheek. And
with her arms twined round — she knew it now — a
broken heart.

** His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me

134 THE CHIMES.

once more ! He suffered her to sit beside His feet,
and dry them with her hair. Oh Meg, what Mercy
and Compassion ! "

As she died, the Spirit of the child returning,
innocent and radiant, touched the old man with its
hand, and beckoned him away.

4--=^^^^

OME new re-
membrance of
the ghostly
figures in the Bells ;
some faint impression
of the ringing of the
Chimes ; some giddy

136 THE CHIMES.

consciousness of having seen the swarm of phantoms
reproduced and reproduced until the recollection of
them lost itself in the confusion of their numhers ;
some hurried knowledge, how conveyed to him he
knew not, that more years had passed ; and Trotty,
with the Spirit of the child attending him, stood
looking on at mortal company.

Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable
company. They were but two, but they were red
enough for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with
a small low table between them ; and unless the fra-
grance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in that
room than in most others, the table had seen service
very lately. But all the cups and saucers being
clean, and in their proper places in the corner cup-
board ; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its
usual nook, and spreading its four idle fingers out, as
if it wanted to be measured for a glove ; there
remained no other visible tokens of the meal just
finished, than such as purred and washed their whis-
kers in the person of the basking cat, and glistened in
the gracious, not to say the greasy, faces of her
patrons.

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 137

This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a
fair division of the fire between them, and sat looking
at the glowing sparks that dropped into the grate ;
now nodding off into a doze ; now waking up again
when some hot fragment, larger than the rest,
came rattUng down, as if the fire were coming
with it.

It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however ;
for it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the
panes of window-glass in the door, and on the curtain
half drawn across them, but in the little shop beyond.
A little shop, quite crammed and choked with the
abundance of its stock ; a perfectly voracious little
shop, with a maw as accommodating and full as any
shark's. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles,
matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats,
boys' kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-
stones, salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery,
lard, mushroom-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread,
shuttlecocks, eggs, and slate-pencil : everything was
fish that came to the net of this greedy little shop,
and all these articles tvere in its net. How many

138 THE CHIMES.

Other kinds of petty merchandise were there, it would
be difficult to say ; but balls of packthread, ropes of
onions, pounds of candles, cabbage-nets, and brushes,
hung in bunches from the ceiling, like extraordinary
fruit ; while various odd canisters emitting aromatic
smells, established the veracity of the inscription over
the outer door, which informed the public that the
keeper of this httle shop was a licensed dealer in tea,
coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff.

Glancing at such of these items as were visible in
the shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance
of two smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the
shop itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on
their lungs ; and glancing, then, at one of the two
faces by the parlour-fire ; Trotty had small difficulty
in recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chicken-
stalker : always inclined to corpulency, even in the
days when he had known her as established in the
general line, and having a small balance against him
in her books.

The features of her companion were less easy to
him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 139

enough to hide a finger in ; the astonished eyes, that
seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking
deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft
face ; the nose afflicted with that disordered action of
its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles ;
the short thick throat and lahouring chest, with other
beauties of the like description ; though calculated to
impress the memory, Trotty could at first allot to
nobody he had ever known ; and yet he had some
recollection of them too. At length, in Mrs. Chicken-
stalker's partner in the general line, and in the
crooked and eccentric line of life, he recognised the
former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley ; an apoplectic
innocent, who had connected himself in Trotty's mind
with Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him
admission to the mansion where he had confessed
his obligations to that lady, and drawn on his unlucky
head such grave reproach.

Trotty had little interest in a change like this,
after the changes he had seen ; but association is
very strong sometimes ; and he looked involuntarily
behind the parlour-door, where the accounts of credit

140 THE CHIMES.

customers were usually kept in chalk. There was no
record of his name. Some names were there, but
they were strange to him, and infinitely fewer than
of old ; from which he augured that the porter was
an advocate of ready money transactions, and on
coming into the business had looked pretty sharp after
the Chickenstalker defaulters.

So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the
youth and promise of his blighted child, that it was a
sorrow to him, even to have no place in Mrs. Chicken-
stalker's ledger.

" What sort of a night is it, Anne ?" inquired the
former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his
legs before the fire, and rubbing as much of them as
his short arms could reach ; with an air that added,
" Here I am if it 's bad, and I don't want to go out
if it 's good. ' '

" Blowing and sleeting hard," returned his wife ;
**and threatening snow. Dark. And very cold."

"I'm glad to think we had muffins," said the
former porter, in the tone of one who had set his
conscience at rest. "It's a sort of night that's

THE FOURTH QUARTER. ^ 141

meant for muffins. Likewise crumpets. Also Sally
Lunns.''

The former porter mentioned each successive kind
of eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his
good actions. After which, he rubbed his fat legs as
before, and jerking them at the knees to get the fire
upon the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody
had tickled him.

** You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear," observed his
wife.

The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker.

" No, " said Tugby . **No. Not particular. I'm a
little elewated. The muffins came so pat ! "

With that, he chuckled until he was black in the
face ; and had so much ado to become any other
colom*, that his fat legs took the strangest excursions
into the air. Nor were they reduced to anything
like decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him
violently on the back, and shaken him as if he were
a great bottle.

"Good gracious, goodness lord-a-mercy bless and
save the man!" cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror.
** What's he doing !"

142 THE CHIMES.

Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated
that he found himself a little elewated.

*' Then don't be so again, that's a dear good soul,"
said Mrs. Tugby, "if you don't want to frighten me
to death, with your struggling and fighting !"

Mr. Tugby said he wouldn't, but his whole exist-
ence was a fight ; in which, if any judgment might
be founded on the constantly-increasing shortness of
his breath, and the deepening purple of his face, he
was always getting the worst of it.

"So it's blowing, and sleeting, and threaten-
ing snow ; and is dark, and very cold : is it, my
dear ? " said Mr. Tugby, looking at the fire, and
reverting to the cream and marrow of his temporary
elevation.

" Hard weather indeed," returned his wife, shaking
her head.

" Aye, aye ! Years," said Mr. Tugby, " are like
christians in that respect. Some of 'em die hard ;
some of 'em die easy. This one hasn't many days to
run, and is making a fight for it. I like him all the
better. There's a customer, my love ! "

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 143

Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had
already risen.

"Now then!" said that lady, passing out into the
little shop. '* What's wanted ? Oh ! I beg your
pardon, Sir, I'm sure. I didn't think it was you."

She made this apology to a gentleman in black,
who, with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat
cocked loungingly on one side, and his hands in his
pockets, sat down astride on the table-beer barrel,
and nodded in return.

** This is a bad business up stairs, Mrs. Tugby,"
said the gentleman. " The man can't live."

** Not the back-attic can't!" cried Tugby, coming
out into the shop to join the conference.

** The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman,
" is coming down stairs fast ; and will be below the
basement very soon."

Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded
the barrel with his knuckles for the depth of beer, and
having found it, played a tune upon the empty
part.

'* The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman :

144 THE CHIMES.

Tugbj having stood in silent consternation for some
time : *' is Going."

** Then," said Tugbj, turning to his wife, ** he
must Go, you know, before he 's Gone."

*' I don't think you can move him," said the gen-
tleman, shaking his head. ** I wouldn't take the
responsibihty of saying it could be done myself. You
had better leave him where he is. He can't live long."

** It's the only subject," said Tugby, bringing the
butter-scale down upon the counter with a crash, by
weighing his fist on it, " that we 've ever had a word
upon ; she and me ; and look what it comes to ! He's
going to die here, after all. Going to die upon the
premises. Going to die in our house ! "

'' And where should he have died, Tugby ! " cried
his wife.

" In the workhouse," he returned. " What are
workhouses made for ? "

'* JSTot for that," said Mrs. Tugby, with great
energy. " Not for that. Neither did I marry you
for that. Don't think it, Tugby. I won't have it.
I won't allow it. I 'd be separated first, and never

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 145

see your face again. Wlien my widow's name stood
over that door, as it did for many many years : this
house being known as Mrs. Chickenstalker's far and
wide, and never known but to its honest credit and its
good report : when my widow's name stood over that
door, Tugby, I knew hifn as a handsome, steady,
manly, independent youth ; I knew her as the
sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever
saw ; I knew her father (poor old creetur, he fell
down from the steeple walking in his sleep, and killed
himself), for the simplest, hardest-working, childest-
hearted man, that ever drew the breath of life ; and
when I turn them out of house and home, may angels
turn me out of Heaven. As they would ! And serve
me right ! "

Her old face, which had been a plump and dim-
pled one before the changes which had come to pass,
seemed to shine out of her as she said these words ;
and when she dried her eyes, and shook her head and
her handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of
firmness which it was quite clear was not to be easily
resisted, Trotty said, '* Bless her ! Bless her ! "

146 THE CHIMES.

Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what
should follow. Knowing nothing jet, but that they
spoke of Meg.

If Tughy had been a little elevated in the parlour,
he more than balanced that account by being not a
little depressed in the sh6p, where he now stood
staring at his wife, without attempting a reply ; se-
cretly conveying, however — either in a fit of abstrac-
tion or as a precautionary measure — all the money
from the tiU into his own pockets, as he looked at her.

The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who ap-
peared to be some authorised medical attendant upon
the poor, was far too well accustomed, evidently, to
little differences of opinion between man and wife, to
interpose any remark in this instance. He sat softly
whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the
tap upon the ground, until there was a perfect calm :
when he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, late
Chickenstalker,

*' There's something interesting about the woman,
even now. How did she come to marry him?"

** Why that," said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 147

him, *' is not the least cruel part of her story, Sir.
You see they kept company, she and Richard, many
years ago. When they were a young and beautiful
couple, everything was settled, and they were to have
been married on a New Year's Day. But, somehow,
Richard got it into his head, through what the gentle-
men told him, that he might do better, and that he'd
soon repent it, and that she wasn't good enough for
him, and that a young man of spirit had no business
to be married. And the gentlemen frightened her, and
made her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her,
and of her children coming to the gallows, and of its
being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more
of it. And in short, they lingered and lingered,
and their trust in one another was broken, and so at
last was the match. But the fault was his. She
would have married him. Sir, joyfully. I've seen her
heart swell, many times afterwards, when he passed
her in a proud and careless way ; and never did a
woman grieve more truly for a man, than she for
Richard when he first went wrong."

** Oh ! he went wrong, did he ?" said the gentle-

L 2

148 THE CHIMES.

man, pulling out the vent-peg of the table-heer, and
trying to peep down into the barrel through the hole.

" Well, Sir, I don't know that he rightly under-
stood himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled
by their having broke with one another ; and that
but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and
perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take
it, he'd have gone through any suffering or trial to
have had Meg's promise and Meg's hand again.
That's my belief. He never said so ; more's the
pity ! He took to diinking, idling, bad companions :
all the fine resources that were to be so much better
for him than the Home he might have had. He
lost his looks, his character, his health, his strength,
his friends, his work : everything ! "

*'He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby," returned
the gentleman, " because he gained a wife ; and I
want to know how he gained her."

" I'm coming to it, Sir, in a moment. This went
on for years and years ; he sinking lower and lower ;
she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her
life away. At last, he was so cast down, and cast out.

THK FOURTH QUARTER. 149

that no one would employ or notice him ; and doors
were shut' upon him, go where he would. Applying
from place to place, and door to door ; and coming for
the hundredth time to one gentleman who had often
and often tried him (he was a good workman to the
very end) ; that gentleman, who knew his history, said,

* I believe you are incorrigible ; there is only one per-
son in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you ;
ask me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it. '
Something like that, in his anger and vexation."

" Ah ! " said the gentleman. " Well ? "

*' Well sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her ;

said it was so ; said it ever had been ; and made a

prayer to her to save him.'*

*' And she — Don't distress yourself, Mr^. Tugby."
" She came to me that night to ask me about

living here. * What he was once to me,' she said,

* is buried in a grave ; side by side with what I was to
him. But I have thought of this ; and I will make
the trial. In the hope of saving him ; for the love of the
light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have
been married on a New Year's Day ; and for the love

150 THE CHIMES.

of her Richard.' And she said he had come to her from
Lihan, and LiHan had trusted to him, and she never
could forget that. So they were married ; and when
the J came home here, and I saw them, I hoped that
such prophecies as parted them when they were young,
may not often fulfil themselves as they did in this
case, or I would n't he the makers of them for a Mine
of Gold.''

The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched
himself: ohserving

" I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were
married ? "

** I do n't think he ever did that," said Mrs. Tughy,
shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. ** He went
on hotter for a short time ; hut his hahits were too
old and strong to he got rid of ; he soon fell hack a
little; and was falling fast hack, when his illness came
so strong upon him. I think he has always felt for
her. I am sure he has. I 've seen him, in his crying
fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand ; and I have
heard him call her ' Meg,' and say it was her nine-
teenth birthday. There he has been lying now, these

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 151

weeks and months. Between him and her haby, she
has not been able to do her old work ; and by not
■ being able to be regular, she has lost it, even if she
could have done it. How they have lived, I hardly
know ! "

** 1 know," muttered Mr. Tugby ; looking at the till,
and round the shop, and at his wife ; and rolling his
head with immense intelligence. " Like Fighting
Cocks ! " •

He was interrupted by a cry — a sound of lamenta-
tion— from the upper story of the house. The
gentleman moved hurriedly to the door.

*' My friend," he said, looking back, ** you need n't
discuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has
spared you that trouble, I believe."

Saying so, he ran up stairs, followed by Mrs.
Tugby ; while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after
them at leisure : being rendered more than commonly
short-winded by the weight of the till, in which there
had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty,
with the child beside him, floated up the staircase
like mere air.

152 THE CHIMES.

'' Follow her ! Follow her ! Follow her ! " He
heard the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their
words as he ascended. '* Learn it, from the creature
dearest to your heart ! "

It was over. It w^as over. And this was she, her
father's pride and joy ! This haggard, wretched
woman, weeping hy the hed, if it deserved that
name, and pressing to her hreast, and hanging down
her head upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare,
how sickly, and how poor an infant ? Who can tell
how dear !

*' Thank God ! " cried Trotty, holding up his
folded hands. " Oh, God be thanked ! She loves her
child ! ''

The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or
indifferent to such scenes, than that he saw them
every day, and knew that they were figures of no
moment in the Filer sums — mere scratches in the
working of those calculations — laid his hand upon
the heart that beat no more, and listened for the
breath, and said, " His pain is over. It 's better as

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 153

it is ! " Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kind-
ness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy.

** Come, come ! " he said, with his hands in his
pockets, '*you mustn't give way, you know. That
won't do. You must fight up. What would have
become of me, if /had given way when I was porter ;
and we had as many as six runaway carriage-doubles
at our door in one night ! But I fell back upon my
strength of mind, and didn't open it ! "

Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, ** Follow
her ! " He turned towards his guide, and saw it
rising from him, passing through the air. ** Follow
her ! " it said. And vanished.

He hovered round her ; sat down at her feet ;
looked up into her face for one trace of her old self ;
listened for one note of her old pleasant voice. He
flitted round the child : so wan, so prematurely old,
so dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble,
mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it.
He clung to it as her only safeguard ; as the last
unbroken Unk that bound her to endurance. He

154 THE CHIMES.

set his father's hope and trust on the frail haby ;
watched her every look upon it as she held it in her
arms ; and cried a thousand times, '* She loves it !
God be thanked, she loves it ! "

He saw the woman tend her in the night ; return
to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and
all was still ; encourage her, shed tears with her, set
nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and
the night again ; the day, the night ; the time go
by ; the house of death relieved of death ; the room
left to herself and to the child ; he heard it moan
and cry ; he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and
when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to
consciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon
the rack ; but she was constant to it, gentle with it,^
patient with it. Patient ! Was its loving mother in
her inmost heart and soul, and had its Being knitted
up with hers as when she carried it unborn.

All this time, she was in want; languishing away, in
dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she
wandered here and there, in quest of occupation ; and

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 155

with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in
hers, did any work for any wretched sum : a day and
night of lahour for as many farthings as there were
figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it ; if
she had neglected it ; if she had looked upon it with
a moment's hate ; if, in the frenzy of an instant, she
had struck it ! No. His comfort was, She loved it
always.

She told no one of her extremity, and wandered
ahroad in the day lest she should he questioned hy her
only friend : for any help she received from her hands,
occasioned fresh disputes between the good woman and
her husband ; and it was new bitterness to be the daily
cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much.

She loved it still. She loved it more and more.
But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One night.

She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walk-
ing to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly
opened, and a man looked in.

** For the last time," he said.

" WiUiam Fern ! "

** For the last time."

156 THE CHIMES.

He listened like a man pursued : and spoke in
whispers.

" Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn't
finish it, without a parting word with you. Without
one grateful word."

*^ What have you done ? " she asked : regarding
him with terror.

He looked at her, but gave no answer.

After a short silence, he made a gesture with his
hand, as if he set her question by ; as if he brushed
it aside ; and said,

" It 's long ago, Margaret, now : but that night is
as fresh in my memory as ever *twas. We little
thought, then," he added, looking round, " that
we should ever meet like this. Your child, Mar-
garet ? Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold
your child."

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he
trembled as he took it, from head to foot.

*' Is it a girl? "

** Yes."

He put his hand before its little face.

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 157

" See how weak I'm grown, Margaret, when I
want the courage to look at it ! Let her be a moment.
I won't hm-t her. It's long ago, but — What's her
name ? "

** Margaret," she answered, quickly.

"I'm glad of that," he said. ''I'm glad of that. "

He seemed to breathe more freely ; and after
pausing for an instant, took away his hand, and
looked upon the infant's face. But covered it again,
immediately.

"Margaret ! " he said ; and gave her back the child.
" It 's Lilian's."

" Lilian's ! "

■*' I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's
mother died and left her."

" When Lilian's mother died and left her ! " she
repeated, wildly.

" How shrill you speak ! Why do you fix your
eyes upon me so ? Margaret ! "

She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant
to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes she
released it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its

158 THE CHIMES.

face : then strained it to her bosom again. At those
times : when she gazed upon it : then it was that
something fierce and terrible began to mingle with
her love. Then it was that her old father
quailed.

** Follow her!" was sounded through the house.
"■ Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart ! "

"Margaret," said Fern, bending over her, and
kissing her upon the brow : '* I thank you for the
last time. Good night. Good bye. Put your hand
in mine, and tell me you '11 forget me from this hour,
and try to think the end of me was here."

'* What have you done ! " she asked again.

" There 11 be a Fire to-night," he said, removing
from her. '' There '11 be Fires this winter-time, to
light the dark nights. East, West, North, and South.
When you see the distant sky red, they '11 be blazing.
When you see the distant sky red, think of me no
more ; or if you do, remember what a Hell was
lighted up inside of me, and think you see its Flames
reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye ! "

She called to him ; but he was gone. She sat

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 159

down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense
of hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room
with it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it.
She said at intervals, **like Lilian, when her mother
died and left her ! " Why was her step so quick,
her eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, when-
ever she repeated those words ?

"But it is Love," said Trotty. ** It is Love. She '11
never cease to love it. My poor Meg ! "

She dressed the child next morning with unusual
care — ah vain expenditure of care upon such squalid
robes ! — and once more tried to find some means of
life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried
till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in
vain.

She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in
the snow, until it pleased some ofiicer appointed to dis-
pense the public charity (the lawful charity ; not that,
once preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and
question them, and say to this one, *' go to such a
place," to that one, " come next week ; " to make a
foot-ball of another wretch, and pass him here and

160 THE CHIMES.

there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until
he wearied and lay down to die ; or started up and
robhed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose
claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed.
She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on
her breast. And that was quite enough.

It was night : a bleak, dark, cutting night : when,
pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived
outside the house she called her home. She was so
faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the
doorway until she was close upon it, and about to
enter. Then she recognised the master of the house,
who had so disposed himself — with his person it
was not difficult — as to fill up the whole entry.

" Oh ! '* he said, softly. *' You have come back ? "

She looked at the child, and shook her head.

** Do n't you think you have lived here long enough
without paying any rent ? Don't you think that,
without any money, you 've been a pretty constant
customer at this shop, now ? " said Mr. Tugby.

She repeated the same mute appeal.

*' Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,"

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 161

he said. ** And suppose you provide yourself with
another lodging. Come ! Don't you think you could
manage it ? "

She said, in a low voice, that it was very late. To-
morrow.

*' Now I see what you want," said Tugby ; '* and
what you mean. You know there are two parties in
this house about you, and you delight in setting 'em
by the ears. I don't want any quarrels ; I 'm
speaking softly to avoid a quarrel ; but if you don't go
away, I '11 speak out loud, and you shall cause words
high enough to please you. But you shan't come in.
That I am determined."

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked
in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering
distance.

** This is the last night of an Old Year : and I
won't carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances
into a New One, to please you nor anybody else," said
Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father.
** I wonder you an't ashamed of yourself, to carry
such practices into a New Year. If you haven't any

162 THE CHIMES.

business in the world, but to be always giving way,
and always making disturbances between man and
wife, you 'd be better out of it. Go along with
you.''

** Follow her ! To desperation ! "

Again the old man heard the voices. Looking
up, he saw the figures hovering in the air, and
pointing where she went, down the dark street.

" She loves it ! " he exclaimed, in agonised
entreaty for her. '* Chimes ! She loves it still ! "

*' Follow her ! " The shadows swept upon the track
she had taken, like a cloud.

He joined in the pursuit ; he kept close to her ; he
looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and
terrible expression mingling with her love, and kindling
in her eyes. He heard her say *' Like Lilian ! To
be changed like Lilian !" and her speed redoubled.

Oh, for something to awaken her. For any sight,
or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a
brain on fire ! For any gentle image of the Past, to
rise before her !

" I was her father ! I was her father !" cried the

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 163

old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows
flying on ahove. " Have mercy on her, and on me !
Where does she go ? Turn her hack ! I was her
father !"

But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on ;
and said, " To desperation ! Learn it from the crea-
ture dearest to your heart ! "

A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of
breath expended in those words. He seemed to take
them in, at every gasp he drew. They were every-
where, and not to he escaped. And still she hurried
on ; the same light in her eyes, the same words
in her mouth ; '* Like Lihan ! To he changed hke
Lilian ! ' '

All at once she stopped.

"Now, turn her hack!" exclaimed the old man,
tearing his white hair. '* My child ! Meg ! Turn
her hack ! Great Father, turn her hack ! "

In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the hahy

warm. With her fevered hands she smoothed its

limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire.

In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she never

M 2

164 THE CHIMES.

-would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it
in a final pang, and last long agony of Love.

Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding
it there, within her dress : next to her distracted
heart : she set its sleeping face against her : closely,
steadily, against her : and sped onward to the river.

To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter
Night sat hrooding hke the last dark thoughts of
many who had sought a refuge there before her.
Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed
sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning
there, to show the way to Death. Where no abode
of living people cast its shadow, on the deep, impene-
trable, melancholy shade.

To the River ! To that portal of Eternity, her des-
perate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its
rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch
her as she passed him, going down to its dark level ;
but the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible
love, the desperation that had left all human check or
hold behind, swept by him like the wind.

He followed her. She paused a moment on the

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 165

brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on
his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in
the Bells now hovering above them.

" I have learnt it ! " cried the old man. ** From the
creature dearest to mj heart ! Oh, save her, save
her !"

He could wind his fingers in her dress ; could
hold it ! As the words escaped his lips he felt his
sense of touch return, and knew that he detained
her.

The figures looked down steadfastly upon him.

*' I have learnt it!" cried the old man. *' Oh,
have mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her,
so young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts
of mothers rendered desperate ! Pity my presump-
tion, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her !"

He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still.

** Have mercy on her !" he exclaimed, *'as one in
whom this dreadful crime has sprung from Love
perverted ; from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen
creatures know ! Think what her misery must have
been, when such seed bears such fruit ! Heaven

166 THE CHIMES.

meant her to be Good. There is no loving mother on
the earth who might not come to this, if such a hfe
had gone before. Oh, have mercy on my child, who,
even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies
herself, and perils her Immortal Soul, to save it !"

She was in his arms. He held her now. His
streng-th w^as like a giant's.

** I see the spirit of the Chimes among you !" cried
the old man, singling out the child, and speaking in
some inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him.
" I know that our Inheritance is held in store for us
by Time. I know there is a Sea of Time to rise one
day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will
be swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow ! I
know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt
ourselves, nor doubt the Good in one another. I have
learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. I
clasp her in my arms again. Oh Spirits, merciful
and good, I take your lesson to my breast along with
her ! Oh Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful ! "'

He might have said more, but the Bells ; the old
familiar Bells ; his own dear, constant, steady friends.

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 167

the Chimes ; began to ring the joy-peals for a New
Year, so lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that
he leapt upon his feet, and broke the spell that bound
him.

'* And whatever you do, father," said Meg, *' do u't
eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether
it's likely to agree with you ; for how you have been
going on. Good gracious ! "

She was working with her needle, at the little table
by the fire ; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for
her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and youth-
ful, so full of beautiful promise, that he uttered a
great cry as if it were An Angel in his house ; then
flew to clasp her in his arms.

But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had
fallen on the hearth ; and somebody came rushing in
between them.

" No ! " cried the voice of this same somebody ;
a generous and jolly voice it was ! ** Not even you.
Not even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New

168 THE CHIMES.

Year is mine. Mine ! I hcive been waiting outside
the house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it.
Meg, my precious prize, a happy year ! A life of
happy years, my darling wife ! '*

And Richard smothered her with kisses.

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty
after this. I do n't care where you have lived or what
you have seen ; you never in your life saw anything
at all approaching him ! He sat down in his chair
and beat his knees and cried ; he sat down in his
chair and beat his knees and laughed ; he sat down
in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and cried
together ; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg ;
he got out of his chair and hugged Richard ; he got
out of his chair and hugged them both at once ; he
kept running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face
between his hands and kissing it, going from her
backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up
again like a figure in a magic lantern ; and whatever
he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in this
chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment ;
being — that's the truth— beside himself with joy.

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 169

** And to-morrow 's your wedding day, my Pet ! "
cried Trotty. " Your real, happy wedding-day ! "

** To-day ! " cried Richard, shaking hands with
him. ** To-day. The Chimes are ringing in the
New Year. Hear them ! "

They were ringing ! Bless their sturdy hearts, they
WERE ringing ! Great Bells as they were ; melodious,
deep-mouthed, noble Bells ; cast in no common metal ;
made by no common founder ; when had they ever
Chimed like that, before !

"But to-day, my Pet," said Trotty. *' You and
Richard had some words to-day."

** Because he's such a bad fellow, father," said
Meg. '' An't you, Richard? Such a headstrong,
violent man ! He 'd have made no more of speaking
his mind to that great Alderman, and putting hiyii
down I do n't know where, than he would of — "

" — Kissing Meg," suggested Richard. Doing it
too!

** No. Not a bit more,'* said Meg. "But I
would n't let him, father. Where would have been
the use ! "

170 THE CHIMES.

" Richard my boy ! " cried Trotty. ' ' You was turned
up Trumps originally ; and Trumps you must be till
you die ! But you were crying by the fire to-night,
my Pet, when I came home ! Why did you cry by
the fire?"

** I was thinking of the years we 've passed toge-
ther, father. Only that. And thinking you might miss
me, and be lonely."

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair
again, when the child, who had been awakened by
the noise, came running in half-dressed.

*' Why, here she is ! " cried Trotty, catching her
up. ** Here 's little Lilian ! Ha ha ha ! Here we
are and here we go ! Oh here we are and here we go
again ! And here we are and here we go ! And
Uncle Will too ! " Stopping in his trot to greet him
heartily. *' Oh, Uncle Will, the Vision that I 've
had to-night, through lodging you ! Oh Uncle Will,
the obligations that you 've laid me under, by your
coming, my good friend ! "

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a
Band of Music burst into the room, attended by a

THE FOURTH QUARTER. I7l

flock of neighbours, screaming *' A Happy New Year,
Meg ! " ''A Happy Wedding ! " '* Many of 'em ! "
and otlier fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The
Drum (who was a private friend of Trotty's) then
stepped forward, and said :

*' Trotty Yeck, my boy ! It 's got about, that your
daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There an't
a soul that knows you that do n't wish you well, or that
knows her and do n't wish her well. Or that knows
you both, and do n't wish you both all the happiness
the New Year can bring. And here we are, to play
it in and dance it in, accordingly."

Which was received with a general shout. The
Drum was rather drunk, by-the-bye ; but never mind.

'* What a happiness it is, I 'm sure," said Trotty,
*' to be so esteemed ! How kind and neighbourly you
are I It 's all along of my dear daughter. She
deserves it ! "

They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg

and Richard at the top) ; and the Drum was on the

. very brink of leathering away with all his power ; when

a combination of prodigious sounds w^as heard outside,

172 TIIE CHIMES.

and a good-humoured comely woman of some fifty
years of age, or thereabouts, came running in,
attended by a man bearing a stone pitcher of terrific
size, and closely followed by the marrow-bones and
cleavers, and the bells : not the Bells, but a portable
collection, on a frame.

Trotty said ** It's Mrs. Chickenstalker ! " And sat
down, and beat his knees again.

" Married, and not tell me, Meg !" cried the good
woman. '' Never ! I couldn't rest on the last night
of the Old Year without coming to wish you joy. I
could n't have done it, Meg. Not if » I had been bed-
ridden. So here I am ; and as it's New Year's Eve,
and the Eve of your wedding too, my dear, I had a
little flip made, and brought it with me."

Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip, did
honour to her character. The pitcher steamed and
smoked and reeked like a volcano ; and the man
who had carried it, was faint.

** Mrs. Tugby !" said Trotty, who had been going
round and round her, in an ecstacy. " I should say,
Chickenstalker — Bless your heart and soul ! A happy

THE FOURTH QUARTER. l73

New Year, and many of 'em ! Mrs. Tugby," said
Trotty when he had saluted her : "I should say,
Chickenstalker — This is WiUiam Fern and Lilian."

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale
and very red.

" Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorset-
shire !" said she.

Her uncle answered *' Yes," and meeting hastily,
they exchanged some hurried words together ; of
which the upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker
shook him by both hands ; saluted Trotty on his cheek
again, of her own free will ; and took the child to
her capacious breast.

**Will Fern!" said Trotty, pulling on his right-
hand muffler. *' Not the friend that you was hoping
to find?"

" Aye !" returned Will, putting a hand on each of
Trotty 's shoulders. **And like to prove a 'most as
good a friend, if that can be, as one I found."

''Oh!" said Trotty. "Please to play up there.
Will you have the goodness !"

To the music of the band, the bells, the marrow-

174 THE CHIMES.

r~-\ ,4^ .. TO-5^^' bones and cleavers, all at
- v^i<,#4SK ■' ^ * once ; and while The Chimes
/^' ' ^W^^^M^ > were jet in lusty operation
out of doors ; Trotty,
%^j^y;^ makino; Me.i^;

THE FOURTH QUARTER. 175

second couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down the
dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or
since ; founded on Lis own peculiar trot.

Had Trotty dreamed ? Or are liis joys and sorrows,
and the actors in them, but a dream ; himself a dream ;
the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now ? If
it be so, oh Listener, dear to him in all his visions, try
to bear in mind the stern realities from which these
shadows come ; and in your sphere — none is too wide,
and none too limited for such an end — endeavour to
correct, improve, and soften them. So may the New
Year be a Happy one to You, Happy to many more
whose Happiness depends on You ! So may each Year
be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our
brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in
what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy.

THE END.

LONDOX :
ERAIjEI;RV and EVANS, PniXTI^aS, n-HlXKFRIARS.

/ « I T^ T-